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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494939">The Taste of Silver</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johns_Farthings/pseuds/Johns_Farthings'>Johns_Farthings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr Norrell &amp; Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bickering to hide your feelings, Fairy Encounters, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic Gone Wrong, Magical Synesthesia, Yearning, possible overuse of strange imagery, protecting each other, starecross hall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:53:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>37,653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23494939</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johns_Farthings/pseuds/Johns_Farthings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Though they should have had plenty in common, from a love of magic to their first names – and perhaps other, more personal things, if they had cared to discuss them – it was widely known that if John Segundus and John Childermass were found in a room together, then they would be found arguing.’</p><p>Magic has been revived in England, but some things never change – until a dangerous encounter in York forces Childermass to reassess what he truly sees in others.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>John Childermass/John Segundus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It started with bells.</p><p>Or rather, it started Miss Redruth, who, upon hearing them ring from the Minster, commented on the strange paradox of bells – how odd it was that Fairies were drawn to them in many tales and yet scared away by the sound of a Sunday chime. She turned to Mr Childermass and asked if he had any insight on this, seeing as he was the Reader of the Book, and very well-versed in magic besides. Miss Redruth never cared who she might offend by implying that a man who had once been a servant was more learned than any number of gentlemen, but then again, there was not much disputing the fact that Childermass was the only Reader of the King's Book.</p><p>This was how it started, and the end of it (or rather, the middle, though Childermass did not realise it at the time) was that Childermass told Miss Redruth quite firmly that bells were a dangerous thing when it came to magic and should not be used unless absolutely necessary. If the tone of his voice was sharper than usual, it was because the conversation had brought back an unpleasant memory of Hanover Square and the mournful tolling of a bell that had almost drawn him into a faint, just before he had performed Belasis’s <em>Scopus</em>. This made his shoulder ache, which shortened his temper, but the words were barely out of his mouth before John Segundus was at Miss Redruth’s elbow, saying that her question was quite pertinent. He declared that he believed bells had great potential, both for charms of protection and to enhance more common spells, and Mr Childermass was quite churlish to address Miss Redruth’s question in such a manner.</p><p>For, though they should have had plenty in common, from a love of magic to their first names – and perhaps other, more personal things, if they had cared to discuss them – it was widely known that if John Segundus and John Childermass were found in a room together, then they would be found arguing. Childermass had only been in York a handful of times since the disappearance of Hurtfew Abbey and the natural confusion that followed, but no matter how few their encounters, he and Mr Segundus could not seem to agree on anything. If Segundus said that birch would surely aid in a certain spell, then Childermass was certain to reply that it would not. Childermass might remark that it was like to rain that day, and Mr Segundus would retort that there was an equal chance of fair weather, and add that Mr Childermass was far too gloomy about such matters and should consider adjusting his manner to prevent others from despairing at his presence.</p><p>It was strange, of course. Mr Segundus was generally considered to be good-tempered, and Childermass had undertaken more than twenty years in Gilbert Norrell’s service, enduring the company of gentlemen far more infuriating than Mr Segundus. Some said that becoming the Reader had given Childermass new airs in life, others that Mr Segundus was growing cantankerous, as some men do when they near middle-age. But those who observed them more frequently saw that Mr Childermass and Mr Segundus were only argumentative with each other. </p><p>This disagreement, the one arising with Miss Redruth and her question about bells in the meeting room of the Starre Inn, was no different to any of the others. Childermass, sensing the sharp edge of Segundus’s voice, bristled, and reminded Segundus sharply that there had been bells at Starecross when it had been a madhouse, which was clear evidence they ought not to be meddled with, and besides, Mr Segundus would do well to mind his own business.</p><p>His tone was sharp, even allowing for their usual arguments – for Childermass’s mood that evening was particularly bad. This was not only because of the memory of Hanover Square, and the ache in his shoulder. In addition to these, he had had an encounter on the way towards York, which, though he did not care to show it, had left him gravely shaken.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The sides of the track were frosted white, and Childermass’s breath came in silver puffs as he rode. The evening was not advanced, but the winter’s early darkness caused a shiver of unease on his skin. Vinculus had fallen behind, and Childermass could no longer hear his singing. It was not that he <em>wanted </em>to hear it – few people did – but Vinculus was his Book, and Childermass had learned to keep him close, when he could. He was about to turn back and see where Vinculus had gotten to when a soft, quick voice made him pause. Childermass blinked. There was a figure at the side of the road. They held no lantern, and yet there was light on and about them, like they were pulling down the shine of the moon. Enough that Childermass could see a face, or parts of it, dark eyes in the dark night.</p><p>Childermass put his hand to his hat, and removed it. He removed his hat for very few people, whether he was expected to or not, but the figure at the side of the road prompted an odd feeling in him, a piece of ice melting slowly - a strange, safe feeling. When he breathed, he could smell heat, though there was no woodsmoke in the air.</p><p>‘Can I help you?’ Childermass said, his usual gruffness somewhat hoarse.</p><p>‘Oh, yes.’ A man’s voice, soft as water going over a round stone. It reminded Childermass of something. Someone. ‘It is only that I have a great many books that need moving from one shelf to another, and I find that I must have help to do it.’</p><p>Why would anyone have books out on the road? Childermass blinked, and it seemed to take an hour for his eyes to open again. He slipped forward on the saddle.</p><p>‘Yes, too many, I am afraid. It is not far at all. If you would just come down from your horse, I am sure we can have them moved in so little time that you would not even notice it.’</p><p>The figure stepped forward. He was not tall, and not short, in fact not any particular height at all, and yet Childermass got the impression that he <em>was</em> short, with eyes and hair the colour of memory and…</p><p>He blinked. The man’s hair was dark, and so were his eyes. He stood nervously at the edge of the path, clasping his hands.</p><p>Childermass hesitated. Something nagged at the back of his mind and made him reluctant to get down from Brewer. ‘Is there no-one else who can help you? I must be in York by…’ What time was it? He could not remember. ‘That is, I-’</p><p>‘Oh no, it must be you.’ The figure’s voice tilted. ‘You are the only one who can help me.’</p><p>It was reassuring, that this person was so certain that Childermass could help. It made him feel warm and wanted, like he had received an invitation to sit by a fire. Perhaps the stranger had a fire. Perhaps, once Childermass had helped him move his books, he would invite Childermass to share it, and Childermass would be able to sit for an hour or two, smoke his pipe and listen to that strange, flowing voice. It was not particularly beautiful or musical, and yet…yet…</p><p>The man stepped forward, reaching up towards Childermass, and Childermass had the strangest feeling that the man was about to touch him, put a hand to his neck or even his lips, and this tugged something deep in his stomach. Then Brewer tossed his head, and Childermass started, instinctively tightening his grip on the reins. The cold wind snagged his hair. His legs wanted very much to dismount from Brewer and go help the strange, quick man with his books, but the rest of him wanted to reach into his pocket.</p><p>‘Come,’ the stranger said. ‘Won’t you be kind, and help me?’</p><p>Childermass put his hand into his pocket, found a piece of fabric, dry and crumpled. He pulled it out. A red handkerchief. He frowned. It had no doubt been expensive, to come in such a deep, rich colour. He could not understand why he would have bought it, except…except…</p><p>He brought the handkerchief closer to his face, and stopped. The figure on the road was no longer as short as Childermass remembered – in fact, they were neither short nor tall, and their hair was not dark, but the colour of memories and the bright moonlight. Brewer snorted nervously. Childermass gripped the red handkerchief, reaching for a spell of protection or banishment. In an instant, the figure’s face flickered into a sharp, pointed smile, and they vanished. Childermass blinked. The air, which had been so heavy and sweet like woodsmoke, was clear and cold again. His ears rang. The red handkerchief trembled in his grasp.</p><p>The fairy – for that, of course, was what the figure had been – was gone.</p><p>The ride to York after meeting the figure seemed particularly long, and Childermass had to stop at the nearby village to wait for Vinculus, explain no-one was to travel by that road until he said so, and that he would return as soon as possible with some solution. What this might be, he was not sure, and this did nothing to improve his temper. His senses were still queasy when he reached the Starre Inn, and he was annoyed that the fairy had so nearly tricked him, when he should have known in the first moment that there was something of magic about it.</p><p>He was annoyed, perhaps most of all, that the fairy seemed to think the best way to entice him was to take on the form of small, quick men with dark eyes, who smelled and sounded rather like John Segundus.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Therefore, at the meeting, it took very little for Mr Childermass and Mr Segundus to begin arguing about bells, until Miss Redruth said that she must introduce Mr Segundus to her friend, and pulled him away.</p><p>Once they were gone, Childermass let out a long breath. He looked around for Vinculus, planning to quit York as soon as was possible and return to the village where he had issued the warning, whether he had a solution or not. But Vinculus was nowhere to be seen. With a huff, Childermass set out to look for him.</p><p>Vinculus was not in the corridor, or the stairwell. Childermass did not find him in the public room, the stables, or street. Eventually, he returned to the meeting room in the none-too-optimistic hope that Vinculus had simply slipped out of his sight for a moment and had since returned. The members of the Society were long-gone, leaving behind them a mess of dirty plates and bits of paper. There was no sign of Vinculus.</p><p>Childermass sighed. He turned to leave and, because his mind elsewhere, ran head-long into Mr Segundus, who had just entered the room. Segundus, whose height was not substantial (a fact that had frequently invited cruel comment in his school days) rebounded off Childermass into a nearby chair that had not been properly pushed back under the table.</p><p>‘Excuse me!’ Segundus said, brushing down his rumpled coat, ‘I would thank you to watch where you are going, Mr Childermass!’</p><p>Childermass’s jaw tightened. ‘I will watch where I am going when people stop standing about in doorways clogging them up!’</p><p>If Mr Honeyfoot had been present at the Society that evening it might have been different, for he would have taken Mr Segundus aside and told him not to mind Mr Childermass, who was clearly tired from his journey and therefore unable to keep a civil tongue in his head. But Mr Honeyfoot’s bad leg was very stiff in the cold weather, which had forced him to remain at home.</p><p>Segundus quivered. ‘You are quite insufferable, Mr Childermass! I will say it again as I have a hundred times, your manners are impossible, and you would do well to adjust them!’</p><p>‘My manners are none of your business.’</p><p>‘I think you will find that they are, especially when you make use of my hall on occasion!’</p><p>‘I can quite easily stay elsewhere. I would have thought you might have welcomed my help, seeing as you are planning to set up your school again.’</p><p>Mr Segundus spluttered. ‘Do not expect me to ask how you know that! I have no desire to hear about your unpleasant dealings and spying. And I do not need your help. I never have.’</p><p>‘Good. Because I’m not offering it.’</p><p>‘Good.’</p><p>‘And whilst we are about it,’ Childermass said, warming to his theme, ‘when I need your advice on bells, or any other form of magic, I will ask for it. You needn’t interrupt my conversations to give it.’</p><p>‘Miss Redruth is a member of the Society. I am quite at liberty to speak to her on any aspect of magic I see fit.’</p><p>‘It was my opinion that she asked. I gave it.’</p><p>‘And I held a different one.’ Segundus set his shoulders back and lifted to his full height. ‘This is a magical society, Mr Childermass, not one of Mr Norrell’s periodicals. All opinions are encouraged – especially those that advocate magic for its full and proper use.’</p><p>The argument took up from there and went on for some time, during which Segundus managed to tidy up most of the room without seeming to notice. Childermass leaned against the doorframe in a sideways manner he knew would irritate Segundus, until one of them – as was inevitable – decided to stride from the room. In this case the strider was Mr Segundus, red-faced and trembling with indignation. Usually, Childermass would watch him leave and satisfy himself that he had won some small victory in making Segundus turn pink all the way to his ears. This time, however, he could not linger. He needed to find Vinculus, and return to the village.</p><p>After waiting a minute or so to ensure Segundus would not see him leave, Childermass slipped down the stairs. He paused for a moment in the public room to ask the lady behind the bar if she’d seen Vinculus, but she hadn’t. As Vinculus was very hard to miss, this meant that he must be outside somewhere. Childermass pulled his coat tight around his shoulders, ducked his head and slipped out of the door. He stood for a moment in the empty street, letting the chatter of the public room fade behind him, wondering which way to go first.</p><p>It came upon him quickly, that the street was not quite empty. He turned, and saw Segundus, his hat pulled low on his head. He was half in one of the alleys that came off the main road, and he was talking to someone. This was not unusual – as a member of the Society, Segundus had need to speak to all sorts of people – but there was something about the way he stood that made Childermass keep looking. Segundus was very still, leaning back on his heels, and his hands were not in his pockets, as they usually were when he was outside. </p><p>He looked…tense.</p><p>Childermass didn’t waste time in calling out. He simply melted into the shadows at the side of the road and slipped quietly up the street. Snow creaked under his boots. A candle in a high window shone yellow on the frost, shimmered as he moved past it so that he could see the person in front of Segundus in the alley. It was a man, carrying a stout stick. His face was hidden in a scarf, and he had a tight hold on Segundus’s left forearm. Childermass’s skin prickled, and he edged forward, trying to get a better look at the man, wondering if he was someone from the York Society, a few of whom were not comfortable with Segundus’s good fortune in gaining Starecross Hall, and the patronage of Mrs Lennox.</p><p>Then the man pulled, dragging Segundus into the alley. Segundus let out a sharp cry, and tried to twist away, but the man held him tight, and raised the stick. Segundus threw up his right arm, and there was a crack like a wheel passing over a twig. Segundus stumbled and fell.</p><p>Childermass had hold of his knife in an instant, because he had been a sailor before he was a magician, and a pickpocket before either, and he had carried a knife since he was very, very young. The blade hit the man’s shoulder and buried in the skin. The man screamed. Segundus twisted, stumbling half to his feet and starting towards the mouth of the alley. He saw Childermass, and his eyes widened.</p><p>Snow crunched. Childermass began to turn, too late. Something made contact with the back of his head with a sharp, shuddering pain. For a moment, the air was still, and then the world seemed to shoot upwards – the street, Segundus, the man clawing at the knife in his shoulder, the yellow light from the candle in the high window, all rising above him like they’d been lifted away, into the sky. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm back! This story started as narration writing practice that got a little out of hand, but we're here now - it seems I can never quite leave the JSMN world behind me.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bells – a long, bright ringing. Childermass blinked. His eyelids were gritty and painful. Silver in his ears, and on his tongue. He coughed. Blankets scratched like rope over his skin. Even when the bells stopped ringing, he could still taste them, bloody in the air.</p>
<p>‘He moved.’</p>
<p>‘What?’</p>
<p>‘He moved!’</p>
<p>Two voices. He heard them in colours – a gentle yellow, and the other grey and clear, sharp as glass and the taste of sky on the ocean.</p>
<p>‘Mr Childermass?’ Yellow’s concern grew dark, muddy like tobacco. ‘Can you hear us?’</p>
<p>Childermass knew the voice, but he couldn’t remember where from. His ears buzzed, and the world slipped into dark, cool silence. He drifted. Time twisted and wavered around him, keeping secret rhythms, impossible to catch. Bells rang silver, and he tasted blood again. He had not been ill many times before, and never had he been so sick as this, except once, when…when…</p>
<p>He opened his eyes. Waterweed lapped the room, spinning, and his breath caught in his chest. His mouth was crowded with leaves and twigs, and there were more leaves and twigs creeping in around him, squeezing the air. He coughed. Something clattered, and when he blinked the trees away the yellow voice was speaking quietly.</p>
<p>‘You are at High Petergate. You are safe, Mr Childermass. Just stay very still.’</p>
<p>A hand touched his forehead, sending a spike of pain between his eyes. Carriages rattled in the street, and the walls quaked under the pressure of the world outside. Water was put to his lips, ran staccato over his chin. He spluttered.</p>
<p>‘You are quite safe, I promise you. Can you hear me? Can you stay awake? Mr Childermass?’</p>
<p>The darkness folded back around him. The next time he woke – or the next time he remembered waking – the room was bright and airy. The light streaming through the window set off a faint melody, like the twang of a harpsichord, though Childermass had never had a good ear for music. His head hurt. The bells of St-Michael-le-Belfry were ringing silver through the afternoon sky, and John Segundus was sitting in a chair by the window, his eyes closed and his head tipped onto his left shoulder as he slept. His right arm was bound in a white sling, held stiff across his stomach. There was a livid purple bruise on his jaw that put the taste of bile on Childermass’s tongue and sent a sharp, shocking anger through him.</p>
<p>His temples throbbed. He felt very sick and thirsty, and wished that Segundus would wake up – not only because Childermass was sick and thirsty, which he would not have admitted to, but because the last he remembered Segundus had been on the floor in the snow, and Childermass was not entirely sure what had happened after that.</p>
<p>‘Mr…’ He coughed. ‘Mr Segundus…’</p>
<p>Segundus sat up with a gasp, looked around, and caught sight of Childermass on the bed.</p>
<p>‘You are awake!’</p>
<p>There it was, that grey voice, like a sky that promised rain. Childermass blinked. He could <em>see</em> it, a scudding cloud about Segundus’s head.</p>
<p>Segundus frowned. ‘Mr Childermass? Can you hear me?’</p>
<p>Childermass nodded, sending a fresh drumbeat of pain across his forehead.</p>
<p>‘Here.’ Segundus got to his feet, pushing down on the chair with his unbound arm to lever himself upright. He looked tired. ‘Drink this.’</p>
<p>Segundus picked up a cup from a table and held it out. He was clumsy with his left hand, and water trickled again down Childermass’s chin, but he swallowed a little, nodded his thanks.</p>
<p>Segundus set the cup down on the bedside table. ‘I must fetch Mr Honeyfoot.’</p>
<p>‘Wait-’</p>
<p>But Segundus was already gone, shuffling out of the room and into the hall, taking the grey sky with him. Mr Honeyfoot came in – High Petergate, Childermass remembered – and spoke with his mild, butter-yellow concern. Later, there was a doctor with a bag over his arm. He prodded Childermass, poked him, lifted up parts of his hair to look at his scalp and asked him personal questions.</p>
<p>‘How is the pain?’ he said at last. He had a voice like leather.</p>
<p>Childermass shrugged.</p>
<p>The doctor sniffed, felt the sides of Childermass’s jaw. ‘Is your vision normal? Any blurring? Spots? Dark circles?’</p>
<p>‘No.’ How could he tell the doctor that he could taste the colour of the bells ringing in the distance, or see Segundus’s voice? ‘I am a little sick.’</p>
<p>‘I would be surprised if you were not. It should settle in a few days.’ The doctor turned, looked at Mr Honeyfoot. ‘Hot drinks if possible. Tea, or warm water. Honey, if he can stomach it.’</p>
<p>Childermass resisted the urge to remind the doctor that he was still in the room.</p>
<p>‘And he needs plenty of rest – I would recommend that he stay here for at least a few days. Keep checking on him, just in case, though the worst of it seems to be over.’</p>
<p>Mr Honeyfoot nodded. ‘That is no trouble, no trouble at all.’</p>
<p>‘It’s a damn miracle,’ the doctor muttered. Perhaps he thought Childermass couldn’t hear. ‘The condition he was in when I first saw him…’</p>
<p>‘We will keep a close eye on him, sir. Perhaps you would take a look at Mr Segundus’s arm whilst you are here?’</p>
<p>The doctor picked up his bag – the metal clinking inside put copper on Childermass’s tongue – and stepped out of the room. Honeyfoot followed. Childermass closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the quaking rattle of the carriages outside, and when he woke someone was by the bed.</p>
<p>‘Only me, Mr Childermass. I brought you a cup of tea.’</p>
<p>He opened his eyes. A lady – it could only be Mrs Honeyfoot, a bustle of orange and purple sounds – placed a cup by his elbow. He sipped from it, burned his mouth, was pulled into sleep again. There was a blue sense of night, another of morning, and when he woke Segundus was in the chair by the bed again, a book balanced on his right knee so that he could turn the pages with his left. The afternoon sun shone bright on his hair, and the bruise on his face was turning yellow.</p>
<p>Segundus glanced up from his book. ‘My apologies,’ he said quietly, and grey filled the room like calm water. ‘It must seem rather strange to have me here. I have been told I must not travel back to Starecross yet, and the doctor has asked that someone keep an eye on you. We have been taking turns.’</p>
<p>Childermass blinked.</p>
<p>‘Though, I have not done my fair share,’ Segundus went on. ‘You kept insisting on filling the room with trees, and it made me quite dizzy. I felt like the whole place was full of branches, about to break.’ Segundus set his book on the foot of the bed and adjusted the fabric binding his right arm. ‘I thought I had better take myself elsewhere before I created more work for the doctor, though I could not make Mr Honeyfoot understand it.’</p>
<p>Childermass took a deep breath. The grey of Segundus’s voice was stronger than the other colours and sounds, distracting. When he had been shot, he had had strange dreams, of places he was yet to go or see, but this was different. He was not sure what magic he was experiencing, if it was magic at all. It felt a little like madness.</p>
<p>Segundus frowned. ‘Are you…do you need something? Only, you are looking at me very strangely.’</p>
<p><em>There is a grey sky around you</em>, Childermass wanted to say, <em>I wish you would explain it. </em></p>
<p>‘I was only wondering what had happened,’ he said instead. ‘My memory is…patched.’</p>
<p>‘Oh.’ Segundus adjusted his arm. ‘Do you remember…that is, we were arguing.’</p>
<p>‘Yes.’</p>
<p>‘I stepped outside to cool my temper. There was a man – he wanted my purse, though there was very little in it, and once he had it he did not seem inclined to let me go on my way. You…that is, I think you must have followed me.’</p>
<p>‘I heard something,’ Childermass said, though he only half-remembered the alley, the chatter of the Starre Inn.</p>
<p>‘Do you always carry a knife?’</p>
<p>Childermass shrugged. ‘I am on the road a lot. What happened then?’</p>
<p>Segundus looked uneasy, not meeting Childermass’s eye. ‘There was another man. I did not realise until it was too late – he came upon you from behind. We were very lucky that someone noticed us when they did, or I think they might have killed us both. As it is, they ran away. I suppose we had attracted too much attention.’ Segundus shuffled his feet. ‘He hit you with a stick, quite hard.’</p>
<p>Childermass touched the back of his head. There was nothing there but his hair, pain, and the fogged memory of a worse pain.</p>
<p>‘How long have I been here? Where is Vinculus?’</p>
<p>‘Three days.’ Segundus leaned forwards in the chair. ‘We cannot find Vinculus.’</p>
<p>Childermass frowned. Vinculus may have a habit of wandering, but he usually put in an appearance when he thought something interesting was happening.</p>
<p>‘He’ll be along,’ he said, though he was worried. He nodded to Segundus’s arm. ‘Is it broken?’ </p>
<p>‘Only in one place. The doctor says it will heal, providing I am careful. At the time I was more concerned about-’</p>
<p>Downstairs, a door banged. Segundus started and looked towards the corridor, then got to his feet. ‘I am sorry. I should go.’</p>
<p>Childermass wanted him to stay. He’d always thought that Segundus’s voice was irritating – it was too shrill, a waver on the end of a bad note, but now, with his head pounding, the grey sky was…calm. Pleasant. But he did not want to admit that. He and Segundus argued. They did not hold quiet conversations. And why should Segundus be sorry? He had no obligation to Childermass. Half the time, they could not even look each other in the eye without causing annoyance. And yes, Childermass had helped Segundus in the alley on Stonegate, but he would have done so for anyone. He was not so churlish as to let Segundus be injured because of a few heated conversations. It had been instinct. Nothing more.</p>
<p>Head aching, he let Segundus go. His resolution was hollow, even to himself. He could not hide what he had felt when he had seen the bruise on Segundus’s jaw - that it made him angry that someone had dared to hurt Segundus, who was unarmed and unable to defend himself. There was something more, too, that made his heart pound when he thought what might have happened if he had not stepped onto the street in that moment, if he had not cared to look a second time.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>He dozed, half-dreaming of Stonegate, the frost on the pavement and the shimmer of the candle in a high window. When he woke, he knew Vinculus was there by his breathing.</p>
<p>He opened his eyes. A berry-tasting dawn glowed beyond the shutters, casting Vinculus in gloomy shadow where he perched on the windowsill.</p>
<p>‘Good morning to you,’ Vinculus said, baring his teeth. There was no colour to his voice, but his dirty coat was open, showing the blue lines and pictures on his chest and stomach. Childermass blinked. The marks were <em>moving</em>, twisting and wriggling like snakes on Vinculus's skin.</p>
<p>‘I said,’ Vinculus snapped, ‘good morning to you.’</p>
<p>Childermass tore his gaze to Vinculus's face. ‘Where have you been?’</p>
<p>‘Here and there. Close by. No-one finds me if I do not want them to. Not even you, Reader.’</p>
<p>Childermass opened his mouth, but a wave of dizziness crept up over him and stole his words.</p>
<p>Vinculus snorted, or perhaps laughed – it was hard to tell. ‘All scrambled up in there, are we?’ He shook his head. ‘You’re not usually one to go into something like that without more care.’</p>
<p>‘What should I have done?’ Childermass gritted his teeth. ‘Left Segundus to it?’</p>
<p>‘Maybe. There’s plenty of magicians in this world now, but there is only one Reader.’</p>
<p>Childermass growled, searching for a retort, but Vinculus held up a hand.</p>
<p>‘Oh, don’t get your heartstrings in a twist. You should be more vigilant, that’s all. As I cannot read myself, I would rather keep you around. You are…useful.’ He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled something out. ‘I thought you might want this.’</p>
<p>The object thumped onto the covers. Childermass reached for it, turned it over. </p>
<p>‘Where did you get this?’ The last he had seen of his knife, it had still been in a man’s shoulder. It was clean now, though, and rested innocently on his palm. ‘How?’</p>
<p>Vinculus grinned. ‘I have my ways. Those men will not be bothering you again. Nor anybody, I think.’</p>
<p>Childermass frowned. ‘What-’</p>
<p>‘Oh, just a little scare. Never underestimate the power of a threat, Reader.’</p>
<p>Childermass decided not to ask. He put the knife on the table by the bed. Vinculus rocked against the window with a gentle thud. Childermass watched him. The writing on his legs moved differently to the that on his chest. Slower, and more ordered.</p>
<p>‘Reader? Reader?’</p>
<p>Childermass blinked. ‘Hm?’</p>
<p>‘I’m used to people staring at me, but you have seen it before.’ Vinculus folded arms around his chest and hopped down from the sill, casting the meandering letters into shadow. ‘There is something different about you.’</p>
<p>Childermass resisted the urge to flinch. ‘I’m tired.’</p>
<p>‘Liar.’ Vinculus rocked back on his heels. ‘It is to do with magic, and more. I can smell it.’</p>
<p>‘You cannot smell magic,’ Childermass said. Before today, he would have believed it to be a truth. ‘Besides, I am, in case you haven’t noticed, a magician.’</p>
<p>‘This is not your magic. And yet…it is.’</p>
<p>‘If you are going to stand there and make ridiculous statements-’</p>
<p>‘The other magician would understand,’ Vinculus murmured, taking a pace back. ‘You should tell him.’</p>
<p>‘Which magician?’ Childermass said, because if Vinculus was going to be difficult, Childermass would damn well be difficult back.</p>
<p>Vinculus grinned. ‘Shall I bring him to you?’</p>
<p>Childermass sat up. ‘Mr Segundus has not been well either, you shall not wake-’</p>
<p>‘Ah ha.’ Vinculus raised a bony finger. ‘So, you did know who I was talking about.’ </p>
<p>Frustration bubbled. If he’d been feeling himself, he would never have fallen for such an obvious trick.</p>
<p>‘I suppose you’d be right about letting him rest,’ Vinculus said. ‘He has been awake for the last three days, unlike some I could mention. A fine mess you made of Stonegate. All that blood in the snow, and between him and the doctor they churned up something terrible. Quite a sight it was.’</p>
<p>‘I’ve had worse.’</p>
<p>'Not worse than this.’</p>
<p>He rolled his eyes. He'd taken knocks to the head before. ‘There isn’t even a mark.’</p>
<p>‘Not any more, perhaps. There was a big enough one two days ago. Nearly enough to see the top of that thick brain of yours. I’ve seen a few things in my time, but I’ve not watched a man walk away from something like that before.’</p>
<p>Childermass put a hand to the back of his head. <em>The condition he was in when I first saw him</em>. He had been too confused at the time to question what the doctor had said, but he remembered the force of the blow, even blearily. There should have been a gash, or at the very least a bruise. And yet…</p>
<p>‘You’re lucky there isn’t a scar,’ Vinculus went on, his eyes gleaming in the dim light. ‘<em>Restoration</em> is not a simple spell, even for an experienced magician, which he is not, and he was rather under strain at the time. I thought he might not manage the superficial things.’</p>
<p>‘Mr Segundus performed…’ He frowned. <em>Restoration and Rectification </em>was a spell that he had looked into, and found out very little. Most of the handful of people he had spoken to about it couldn’t remember how they knew to perform it. Many of them were not magicians – they were ordinary people, finding help from something deeply buried, almost lost. ‘How?’</p>
<p>Vinculus grinned wickedly. ‘Why don’t you ask him? He is only in the other room.’</p>
<p>Childermass started upright, but it was already too late – Vinculus took hold of a table in the corner and shook it. A vase teetered, tipped, and shattered loudly on the floor.</p>
<p>‘Vinculus!’ Childermass snarled. ‘You-’</p>
<p>A door creaked in the corridor. Vinculus slipped out of the room, vanished into the shadows.</p>
<p>‘Mr Childermass?’</p>
<p>A knock, and then the room was full of grey cloud. Segundus, in a nightgown that had clearly been borrowed because it half-drowned him, falling off his shoulders. The hem tripped his feet as he stumbled towards the bed. ‘Mr Childermass are you-’</p>
<p>‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Vinculus…’ But Vinculus was gone, and he could not bring himself to explain. ‘I just…I think I might have knocked it in my sleep.’</p>
<p>Segundus glanced at the vase, which was a good three or four feet from the bed. His eyes were puffy, hair tangled. The right sleeve of the oversized gown hung loose where his arm was bound. ‘By magic, do you mean?’</p>
<p>Childermass shrugged.</p>
<p>‘Oh dear.’ Segundus looked at the broken pieces on the floor. ‘I had better put something on my feet.’</p>
<p>‘Go back to sleep.’ Childermass waved a hand towards the mess. ‘It will still be there in the morning.’</p>
<p>‘I was awake anyway.’</p>
<p>Childermass raised an eyebrow. </p>
<p>Segundus flushed. ‘Well…I am awake now.’</p>
<p>Before Childermass could protest, Segundus left, taking the cloudy sky with him. He returned wearing shoes - he had tucked the hem of the gown in and around the tops - and carrying a broom.</p>
<p>‘Mr Segundus-’</p>
<p>‘I do not mind.’ Segundus started sweeping the vase into the corner, awkward with his left arm. ‘Starecross did not become the way it is now without a little brushing and tidying, and it will take a great deal more before it is a school. But it will be one, soon I hope.’</p>
<p><em>I am sure it will</em>, Childermass thought, and then realised he must have said it out loud, because Segundus stopped sweeping.</p>
<p>‘Mr Childermass.’ Segundus had his back to him, but Childermass could tell he was smiling, because grey and silver rippled together like water. ‘Did you just agree with me?’</p>
<p>‘It was…I have a headache.’</p>
<p>Segundus laughed. ‘I imagine so. Then let us not start another argument.’</p>
<p>A beat passed. Childermass looked at his hands where they were folded on the bed, listening to the gentle <em>shoop </em>of the broom, and wondered how much time he and Segundus had spent quarreling since they first met, and whether he hadn't rather wasted that time doing it. When he glanced up, the remains of the vase were neatly tidied against the wainscot, and Segundus had stood the brush against a wall.</p>
<p>‘Do not worry,’ Segundus said, sitting down in the chair with a sigh. ‘When we are both feeling better, I shall make sure to start two arguments, to make up for it.’</p>
<p>Childermass smirked. ‘Maybe <em>I </em>will start them.’</p>
<p>'I thought you had a headache?’</p>
<p>‘Like a thunderstorm.’</p>
<p>‘The doctor will come see you again today. Perhaps he has something that will help.’</p>
<p>‘I doubt it.’ He gave Segundus a sharp look. ‘Doctors know very little of magical healing.’</p>
<p>Segundus went red. ‘I do not-’</p>
<p>‘What did you use for the cross?’ Childermass sat forward. ‘Do not deny it. <em>Restoration and Rectification </em>requires a cross. What did you use?’</p>
<p>Segundus sighed, looked down at his lap. ‘Two forks from the Starre, and the cravat of a gentleman who had seen what had happened. It was…poorly improvised, perhaps, and I had to ask the doctor’s assistance to tie it, I could not use my arm, but…’</p>
<p>'It must have been bad, for you to turn to magic.’</p>
<p>‘He hit you very hard. There was…damage. It was not pleasant.’ Segundus bit his lip. ‘Someone ran to fetch the doctor, and he said…’</p>
<p>Segundus swallowed, and looked away. Childermass’s mouth seemed to fill with crack willow as his heart pounded, the old sensation of ivy and waterweed creeping in around them. He wanted to ask what the doctor had said, what Segundus had seen, but he didn’t think Segundus would answer.</p>
<p>Segundus shook himself. ‘I have not practiced magic as medicine before now, but there was…very little choice. I had done the spell once before, and it seemed the right thing – it was as if someone told me that I should.’</p>
<p>Childermass's skin prickled. Segundus had been inside his head, Segundus and his magic, trying to put it back to rights.</p>
<p>‘Are you quite well?’ Segundus murmured. ‘Truly?’</p>
<p>‘I have a bad headache,’ he said evenly. ‘And I feel rather sick. But…’</p>
<p>He hesitated. Segundus looked him directly in the eye – Childermass could count on his fingers the number of times Segundus had done that, and every time he noticed how dark they were, and how bright – and he felt the change in the room around them like a pounding drum, an impossibly loud heartbeat.</p>
<p>‘I am…’ He swallowed. ‘I am seeing things.’</p>
<p>Segundus blinked. Childermass almost put a hand to his mouth – he hadn’t expected the words to come. He hadn’t expected to look Segundus in the eye, and tell him something so dangerous.</p>
<p>He waited for Segundus to say that he was mad, but Segundus only leaned forward on the chair.</p>
<p>‘What do you mean?’</p>
<p>Childermass shouldn’t say. It was a risky thing to admit to, and to Segundus, of all people…</p>
<p>And yet, he trusted him. It was a strange revelation, hardly a revelation at all. He might have argued with Segundus a hundred times, but never because he was dishonest. Not only did Childermass believe he wouldn't spread gossip all over York, but more than that…he trusted his skill. </p>
<p>‘I am…seeing magic. And sounds, and…’ He reached out, as if to touch the sky that surrounded Segundus, but it drifted away under his fingertips. ‘And smelling tastes and tasting smells, and…and everything is a colour, even when it has no right to be.’</p>
<p>There was a long silence, and Childermass thought that he must have made a mistake, that Segundus would laugh at him, or shake his head and go and fetch the doctor.</p>
<p>But at last, Segundus nodded. ‘I see.’</p>
<p>Childermass frowned. ‘You do?’</p>
<p>‘Of course. Something is wrong, because of what happened, or because of the magic I did after.’ Segundus set his jaw. ‘And we must find a way to fix it.’</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I've been awake since 3am so this chapter is up earlier than expected! Thanks to everyone who said they liked the last one -updates should be fairly regular (probably weekly).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The strange mix of sounds and colours and tastes had eased when Childermass woke, but were far from gone. He got up and, though his legs ached and he had to use the wall to steady himself, his head didn’t pound as much. It was early, orange sun coming sweet through the shutters. The street outside was quiet. Segundus was probably not yet awake. He had left quickly the previous night, his jaw firm and his lips set in the stubborn line that, usually, never failed irritate Childermass beyond all measure. This time, it reassured him. Childermass rarely trusted anyone who he had not been able to observe over a number of months, and he had known Segundus for longer than that. Perhaps they had differing magical opinions – and there were old resentments, of course – but there was no denying that Segundus was a magician, and diligent and intelligent with his work.</p><p>The memory came suddenly back to him of the figure by the side of the road with dark hair and eyes, and a voice that was like Segundus’s, only colder and slicker, and Childermass’s heart jumped. He had forgotten, completely, the danger he had encountered, and he had promised to return…</p><p>He stumbled to the door, and almost ran into Mr Honeyfoot, who stood in the corridor with his stick raised like he had been about to knock.</p><p>‘Oh, Mr Childermass.’ Honeyfoot stepped back, shifting his stick to his other hand. Butter-yellow rippled around him as he spoke. ‘You startled me. How are you feeling?’</p><p>‘I am well enough. Mr Honeyfoot, I-’</p><p>‘We did not expect you to be out of bed so soon.’</p><p>‘Please.’ Childermass held up a hand. ‘I have remembered something urgent.’</p><p>Honeyfoot listened with a frown as Childermass told him what had happened on the road to York, though he left out certain, sensitive, parts of the encounter.</p><p>When he had finished, Honeyfoot nodded. ‘I will write to Mr Purfois,’ he said, ‘he is in Leeds, with Mr Levy. They will be able to make it to the place you mention in a very short time. Can you write a description of the exact location?’</p><p>‘Yes, but I should…’</p><p>‘I very much hope that you are not going to say that you will go yourself.’ Honeyfoot gave him a look that made Childermass think that it would be a sorry pupil indeed who misbehaved at the yet-to-be-established Starecross Academy of Magic. ‘It is completely against doctor’s orders, and I will not hear of it.’</p><p>‘But…’</p><p>Honeyfoot shook his head. ‘Do not argue with me, Mr Childermass. You must stay here, and rest. Besides, Mrs Honeyfoot would have something to say to both of us if I let you so much as set foot out of doors before you are ready.’</p><p>In the end, Childermass agreed. Both Levy and Purfois were capable magicians, and at least one of them – Levy – was sensible, so he doubted that they would be in danger if they were warned of what to expect. He wrote a quick note, outlining where the incident had occurred and that the fairy had taken on a familiar guise, though he did not go into further detail. He was certain that it would not take the same shape for Levy and Purfois, so there was no benefit in revealing more than he should. Honeyfoot took the note downstairs to be sent by urgent messenger, and Childermass sat heavily on the chair that Segundus had used the night before. He was surprisingly tired, considering all he had done was write a letter, and his head ached again.</p><p>He must have fallen asleep, or at least into a doze, because a loud knock startled him awake. He twisted to see Mrs Honeyfoot in the doorway.</p><p>‘Mr Childermass,’ she said. ‘Breakfast is being served downstairs, and I wondered if you would like some bringing up?’</p><p>‘I will come down,’ he said, getting to his feet. He’d slept too long, and was restless to get out of the room. ‘If you do not mind.’</p><p>‘Of course not, if you are strong enough for it.’</p><p>Childermass nodded and, though he felt a little lightheaded at the top of the stairs, he was able to descend them without difficulty. Mrs Honeyfoot walked ahead of him, the sense of orange colours and smells disconcerting as she chattered, but not unpleasant. There was a brusque kindness about her that set him at ease.</p><p>Breakfast was served at a small dining table. Honeyfoot was already seated, a cup of coffee at his elbow and two eggs on his plate. Segundus was trying, rather unsuccessfully, to spread jam on a piece of bread with his left hand. His tongue poked between his teeth, forehead creased, and Childermass had the urge to take the knife and help him, but Mrs Honeyfoot got there before he could do anything foolish. She tutted and fussed, and Segundus went a pleasing shade of pink.</p><p>Childermass quickly averted his eyes, sat. It was odd to be placed in Honeyfoot’s dining room as if he were a guest, when Honeyfoot had more than once intervened in his and Segundus’s arguments, but he did not think on it too long. He was surprised to find that he was hungry. The food was confusing, amongst the other new smells and tastes fizzing around the room, but he hadn’t eaten in three days, and he managed egg and toast before the sensations got tangled in a chalky mess.</p><p>He set his spoon aside, glanced around. ‘Where is Vinculus?’</p><p>He expected Honeyfoot to answer, but it was Segundus who spoke. ‘We cannot find him.’ Concern turned the clouds in his voice dark, the promise of fresh rain. ‘Do you not remember that I told you yesterday?’</p><p>‘I remember, but I saw him last night.’ Childermass gestured at the table. ‘I thought the promise of food would bring him out of sleep.’</p><p>Mr and Mrs Honeyfoot looked at each other. Mr Honeyfoot set down his teacup. ‘We have not seen him, Mr Childermass.’</p><p>‘None of the maids have mentioned it,’ added Mrs Honeyfoot. ‘Are you certain that you did not dream it?’</p><p>Childermass huffed. Strange happenings or not, he knew his own mind. And Vinculus had returned his knife. ‘He came to my room.’</p><p>‘Of course.’ Segundus turned to Mr Honeyfoot. ‘I could not understand it, but my purse has been returned to me. The one that was taken. I had not thought of it since Stonegate.’ Segundus glanced at Childermass, and Childermass once again felt the snap of crack willow. ‘But this morning I found it in my coat. I thought that the men must have dropped it in the confusion, and someone had put it in my pocket without my realising. But if Vinculus…’</p><p>Childermass shrugged. ‘He has his ways of finding things.’</p><p>‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Honeyfoot said, looking at her husband. ‘I am not sure I like the idea of him coming into our house without our realising.’</p><p>‘Vinculus is harmless,’ Childermass said quickly – though it was not strictly true, Mrs Honeyfoot had no need to know that. He had had enough trouble for one week.</p><p>‘But if he was here,’ Honeyfoot said, ‘why did he not stay? I am sure we could have found a place for him…somewhere.’</p><p>‘Vinculus comes and goes as he wishes.' Childermass was curious as to where Vinculus had gone, but, looking around the neat room, he could see why he had not stayed. Vinculus was not suited to such places. He liked to disrupt things, of course, or ‘bring some life to them’ as he would say, but he knew that Childermass would not let him cause trouble in Mr Honeyfoot’s house. Especially with Segundus there. Especially as Segundus had saved his life. ‘He wanted to know how I was, and once he found out, he left. He is probably enjoying the time being free of me.’</p><p>Mrs Honeyfoot huffed, but dropped the matter. Mr Honeyfoot began to talk about something he had read in the paper. Childermass listened for a time, but quickly gave up and began to take sideways glances at the patches of sky shifting and changing around Segundus as he joined in the conversation. He told himself that he was only watching out of magical curiosity, but he still managed to observe that Segundus got jam on the corners of his mouth as he ate.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He and Segundus agreed – there it was again, them agreeing – that the strange sensations Childermass was having were from <em>Restoration and Rectification</em>. Though they had no evidence, they could think of no other explanation. What he was seeing was plainly an effect of magic, and <em>Restoration </em>was the only magic that had been performed upon him before it began. They said nothing to the Honeyfoots about this, and Childermass was pleased that Segundus did not even suggest it – though magic was coming back to England, there had always been a fine line between magic and madness. Childermass had no wish to be put in the same situation as Lady Pole. </p><p>They also agreed that they must go to Starecross, where they would have privacy, and Segundus's limited collection of books. It was an inconvenience, therefore, that the doctor refused to let Childermass leave for another two days. Although Mr Honeyfoot’s house was pleasant, it was not large, which meant he and Segundus could not talk in private – especially as Mr and Mrs Honeyfoot seemed to be doing their utmost to keep them away from each other. If Childermass happened to enter a room whilst Segundus was there, it was usually only a matter of moments before Honeyfoot would suggest that Segundus come with him to his study, or Mrs Honeyfoot would bustle in and ask Childermass if he didn’t need a rest, and perhaps he should go upstairs.</p><p>In the end, Childermass gave up trying to speak to Segundus on his own and spent his time staring out of the open window of his bedroom, watching people passing on the street below. There was a man who carried the smell of lavender about him when he spoke, so strong that Childermass could sense it high above, and woman with grey hair who, when she crossed the road and happened to sneeze, gave him the impression that she was in fact made of sunlight. Children were the strangest, the colour of their voices bright but poorly formed, like paint thrown against a window. By turns, watching made him feel dizzy, aching or sick, and he found it difficult to keep his thoughts in order, but he knew he could not stay in High Petergate for ever. He did not need his cards to tell him that he must leave soon, and be ready for it when he did.</p><p>Mr Honeyfoot nearly fell of his chair when Segundus announced that they planned to travel to Starecross together. There might have been more subtle ways of meeting there, but Segundus was a poor liar, and Childermass did not bother himself worrying about what Mr Honeyfoot might think.</p><p>‘But…’ Mr Honeyfoot looked at Segundus, then back again. ‘Forgive me, Mr Childermass, it is not that you are not welcome at Starecross, but I would have thought you would go to meet Mr Levy and Mr Purfois?’</p><p>‘I find that I am not…fully myself,’ Childermass said. He had thought carefully on the matter of Levy and Purfois, but he had been within a hair of being led into Faerie the last time he had met the figure on the road, even when he had all his senses in order. It would be foolhardy to attempt anything until he and Segundus had looked further into the magic that ailed him. ‘I think it would be wise to continue to rest for a few days.’</p><p>‘Why, then you are welcome to stay here.’</p><p>‘Thank you.’ Childermass tipped his head. ‘But I would rather go to Starecross. I have a need to be outdoors, at times.’</p><p>Mr Honeyfoot did not seem particularly upset by this, but he did look sideways at Segundus again. Segundus only shrugged. </p><p>‘What about Mr Vinculus?’ Mrs Honeyfoot said, clasping her hands, ‘will he not look for you here?’</p><p>‘I doubt he will bother you.’ Childermass shrugged. ‘He usually knows where to find me.’</p><p>Mr and Mrs Honeyfoot made no further protest after that.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They took a carriage to Starecross Village, collecting Brewer from the Starre Inn and allowing him to plod behind. Childermass travelled inside – though he trusted Brewer to carry him no matter what condition he was in, he did not like the idea of riding through the crowded streets of York with his head so muddled. Even the rattle of the wheels sent a splintered, wooden taste into his mouth.</p><p>The carriage stopped at the village, and they walked from there. Segundus’s usually rapid gait was a little uneven with his bound arm, and the loose sleeve of his coat flapped in the wind. Childermass led Brewer by the head, taking some comfort in his familiar presence - it helped that Brewer was no colour but his own, and smelled only of horse. Brewer seemed to have missed him, and kept bumping his nose against Childermass’s shoulder. The wind across the moor shivered purple and gold, a wide, seething ocean.</p><p>If the countryside seemed strange to him, Starecross Hall was something else. Childermass had felt its magic before, in the grip of the vines that bound it when Lady Pole was kept there, but this was different. He sensed magic as he always did, a ripple that spoke of the ancientness of the stones and wild gardens, but now there was something more. The trees and shrubs which brushed against him tasted of flowers and sap, and there was power, raw and sharp and even a little bloody at the back of his throat. He was glad that they had approached on foot – he could not have borne to ride upon it at speed.</p><p>The feel of the gate under his fingertips was like sand falling down a glass jar. Segundus pushed aside a bramble that was growing into the path, bent under it. ‘There is still much work to be done,’ he said, ‘especially outdoors. It did not matter when it was only ourselves and Lady Pole, but if it is to be a school it must have proper grounds.’</p><p>Childermass ducked under the bramble after Segundus. Stones rattled on the path.</p><p>‘Sometimes I think this place will never be tidy.’ Segundus fitted a key into the front door with a bronze click. ‘Despite our work, it hardly looks any different to the day I first met Mr Strange here.’</p><p>‘Mr Strange?’</p><p>‘Oh yes.’ Segundus turned, still with his hand on the door. ‘I suppose you would not know. Mr Strange summoned Miss Absalom in this house. Mr Honeyfoot and I came here to see the place, and I stumbled quite accidently into Mr Strange’s dream.’ Segundus caught sight of Childermass's expression, went pink. ‘It was not I who summoned her – I only intruded. Mr Strange was rather cross about it.’</p><p>‘What was she like?’ He could not help but ask. Summoning was a difficult art, and not one he had ever practiced himself. It was not the kind of magic that suited him. </p><p>‘I only saw her for a moment. She was very beautiful. And…she smiled at me.’</p><p>Segundus turned quickly away, pushed the door open with a creak. Childermass followed. He wanted to ask more, but Segundus did not seem inclined to tell him, so he kept silent. The click of their shoes on the flags rang indigo into the soft air of the house. Dust swirled. </p><p>‘It is quite a marvellous place,’ Segundus said. He seemed nervous, and the pearly sky around him twisted silver. ‘It will make a good school.’</p><p>Childermass nodded. He could not deny it. He could not deny, either, that Segundus would make a good teacher, providing the pupils did not give him too much trouble.</p><p>But Segundus was not yet a teacher, and Starecross not yet a school, and with only the two of them – Charles was visiting a sick relative in the next village – it took the better part of the day to clear out the dust that had settled in Segundus’s absence. Segundus insisted on preparing a room for Childermass, but found that he could not make a bed with his bound arm. He ended up lingering nervously in the doorway, sheets and blankets balanced on his shoulder, whilst Childermass sorted the bed. He took some pleasure in how surprised Segundus seemed that he knew how to do it, and at the neatness of the final result.</p><p>Dark crept in, and they ate supper in the kitchen, toasting bread and pieces of hard cheese over the sputtering fire. Childermass kept waiting for an argument to begin, but it did not. He supposed there was not very much to argue about – they had been busy, and Segundus could hardly have criticised Childermass for not doing his fair share of the work. Equally, it would have been unfair for Childermass to say anything of the sort to Segundus when his arm clearly pained him, and when he had saved Childermass’s life.</p><p>Besides, the hard work had been good for him. The magic of the house was already becoming familiar to him, but once or twice it had caught him off guard, setting his teeth on edge and jangling harshly in his ears. Until he was used to it, it was better to keep his thoughts occupied.</p><p>Segundus vanished after supper, and returned as Childermass was wiping the cups and dishes with a large book under his undamaged arm, and two smaller ones grasped in his left hand. He set them down, went out again, and returned with another three books, and a candle between his teeth.</p><p>‘I would have helped you carry them,’ Childermass said, setting aside the last plate and wiping his damp hands on his shirt - Segundus saw him doing it, and there was a flicker of the old disapproval, or exasperation, but only for a moment. Perhaps it was the dark evening, the firelight that whispered on the walls, or the fact that Segundus looked rather unlike himself with the white sling around his arm, and the candle between his teeth, but a shiver went over Childermass’s skin that reminded him of the frosty road to York, and the figure he had encountered there.</p><p>Segundus made a muffled sound, took the candle from between his teeth and set it on a holder in the centre of the table. ‘It does not matter – two trips are hardly more demanding than one.’</p><p>Segundus lit the candle. Smoke hissed, and the flame fell golden across his face. Childermass looked away, pulled one of the books quickly towards him. They were books about magic, of course, rather than books <em>of</em> magic, but there may be something in them. </p><p>It was a long night. Childermass was tired, but Segundus seemed wide awake, poring over the texts with a half-frown creasing the space between his brows, occasionally putting his tongue between his lips or tutting.</p><p>‘Have you found anything?’ Childermass said at last. His head pounded, and he still saw the swim of print after he rubbed his eyes. He could hardly remember what he had just read, though he was less certain whether it was due to the ache in his head, or the fact that he had been listening closely to Segundus’s breathing.</p><p>‘Very little, I am afraid.’ Segundus sighed. Grey twisted like mercury around him. ‘Still, we have only just begun.’</p><p>He adjusted the sling around his arm with a wince.</p><p>‘Does your arm pain you?’ Childermass murmured. He could not help but ask. He still remembered the sound the stick had made against it in Stonegate. </p><p>‘Not too much. It aches, mostly.’ Segundus shrugged, and the mercury darkened. ‘Chiefly, it is a frustration. I must remember not to move it suddenly, but I sometimes forget that I cannot use it.’</p><p>Childermass nodded. ‘By the time you have learned not to, it will be well again.’</p><p>Segundus frowned for a moment, but then his expression cleared. ‘Were you in bandages for long, when you were shot?’</p><p>‘Not long.’ Instinctively, he put a hand to his shoulder, where the old scar rested beneath his shirt. Touching it put the chill of lead against his fingertips. ‘In truth, I did not have time to be invalided. Norrell would not have allowed it.’</p><p>‘You make him sound rather cruel.’</p><p>‘He could be, in his way. But I have met plenty worse than him.’ He looked up at Segundus. ‘You could argue that I have been cruel to you, in the past, and yet you still came to my aid.’</p><p>‘You came to mine. If it had not been for me, you would not have been injured at all.’ He indicated the book in front of him. ‘Though, even when I tried to help, I did not truly succeed.’</p><p>Childermass tipped his head. ‘<em>Restoration </em>is a tricky spell,’ he said. ‘It must have been very bad, for you to attempt it.’</p><p>‘I…’ Segundus swallowed. ‘I was not thinking very clearly, and some of it I cannot remember, but…I have never seen someone struck so hard. I thought, at first, that he had killed you. The doctor said that he did not think you had much time.’</p><p>Childermass frowned. He had been so bound up in the colour of Segundus’s voice, the new sounds and smells and sensations, that he had not noticed the lines that pulled at Segundus’s face, and made him look older. The creak and crack of the willows between Childermass’s teeth returned, fleetingly, until Segundus looked away, and they faded.</p><p>The thought struck Childermass that perhaps, in High Petergate, the trees and waterweed had not been his own panic. Perhaps they had been someone else’s – for Segundus had said quite plainly that he had felt them too.</p><p>Segundus did not hide his emotions well. Childermass had used the fact more than once in their quarrels, to tease or embarrass him. Now, though, he could not tell if Segundus was only disturbed by what he had seen in Stonegate, or if there was something else beneath the surface, unsaid, but pulling like hook under Childermass’s skin.</p><p>He decided to press the matter. Maybe it was wrong, but he could not help himself.</p><p>‘It is strange,’ he said, edging back from the table, ‘in all the accounts I have heard of <em>Restoration</em>, it is almost always performed by someone close to the injured party – relatives, or friends, or…’ He shrugged, slowly and deliberately. ‘A close connection seems to aid the effectivity of the spell.’</p><p>Somewhere, a clock struck midnight, a chime like snow on a clear, cold night. Childermass had seen midnights before – he was used to keeping unusual hours – but there was something different about a midnight here, at Starecross, with Segundus across the table, their knees only a few inches apart and no-one for miles to see them. The sky shifted around Segundus as he breathed, and Childermass wanted to reach forward and touch it, <em>taste</em> it…</p><p>‘Goodness,’ Segundus said, slamming the book he had been reading closed, ‘I had not realised the time. You look tired, Mr Childermass. You must go to bed at once, or the doctor will be quite angry with me for keeping you up.’</p><p>Childermass opened his mouth, but Segundus waved his protest away as easily as a butler sending away an unwanted guest.</p><p>‘I will not hear a word of it. You must have rest.’ He got to his feet. ‘I will tidy in here – goodnight.’ </p><p>It might have been the perfect time to begin an argument, petty or not, but Childermass was tired, and he did not want to. He got his feet. He waited, just for a moment, but Segundus kept his head down, tidying the books. He seemed unwilling to meet Childermass’s eye.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know I'm pulling more from the TV show making Starecross Miss Absalom's house, I just like the idea of the two being the same - hope it's not too confusing!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next day was mild, but it brought a sharpness to Childermass’s thinking that had been clouded the night before. It was the effects of the magic, making him unwary. Whatever there was between him and Segundus – and he would admit to himself that it had been there long before Stonegate – it was best left alone. He had no choice but to continue his research with Segundus, but he would keep what distance he could.</p>
<p>They spent most of the day with the books in the house. Unable to discover much on <em>Restoration and Rectification </em>itself, at lunchtime they widened their areas of interest to records of people having visions, and of sensitivity to magic.</p>
<p>They found nothing. There was no record of anyone experiencing colours or smells or sounds in response to ordinary things, especially when there was no magic present.</p>
<p>‘Here,’ Segundus said, sometime after lunch, leaning over a slim, damp-spotted book, ‘this is an account of a lady in London in the fourteenth-century who could tell the nature of someone’s soul simply by looking at them.’</p>
<p>Segundus glanced up, and Childermass met his eyes. There was a question in there, beckoning – <em>what you see of my soul, Mr Childermass? – </em>and he did not trust himself to answer. Segundus had asked several times since they had arrived at Starecross what exactly he was seeing, and Childermass had kept his responses vague for a reason.</p>
<p>Segundus leaned forward a little more, close enough that Childermass could touch him, and he couldn’t help but wonder what that grey sky would feel like, if it would taste of the silver bells he’d heard ringing the first time he’d woken in High Petergate...</p>
<p>He swallowed, edged back in his chair. ‘What else does it say?’</p>
<p>‘Very little.’ Segundus looked down again. ‘She was condemned by the clergy, and vanished not long after. There is no description of what she might have seen.’</p>
<p>Childermass sighed.</p>
<p>‘Oh, do not worry.’ Segundus gave him a nervous smile. ‘I am sure that we will find something, even if it takes time. And you said yourself, it is not as bad as it was the first night. Perhaps it will even fade.’</p>
<p>Childermass nodded, but he was tired, and it was difficult not to be distracted by Segundus’s closeness in the kitchen. He looked at the page in front of him for a few minutes, taking none of it in. The print was poor, too closely spaced, and the words ran together like water.</p>
<p>When he looked up again, Segundus had rested his chin on his left hand and was looking downcast.</p>
<p>‘What is it?’</p>
<p>‘Nothing. Only…I am sorry, Mr Childermass.’</p>
<p>‘What?’</p>
<p>‘I am never very useful in urgent situations. I was in such a rush in Stonegate, if I had taken more time-’</p>
<p>‘No.’ Childermass closed the book in front of him with a snap. ‘The situation was bad, and you did what you could. Do not blame yourself. I certainly do not.’</p>
<p>‘But if I had not allowed myself to get into trouble – if I had been stronger…’</p>
<p>Segundus’s breath darkened to grey. Childermass tasted bitterness at the back of his mouth, like an old scab, like crack willow. He tried to think of something to say, and, instinctively, reached out to put his hand on Segundus’s. He caught himself halfway, drew back, but it was too late. Segundus’s eyes went to Childermass’s hand, then his face, and he got quickly to his feet. The heel of his palm had left a red mark on his jaw.</p>
<p>‘I think I have another book upstairs,’ he said. He took a step back, knocking his chair into the table, and stumbled out of the room. </p>
<p>Childermass cursed under his breath. That was twice, now, that he had lost himself in Segundus’s voice, almost given himself away. He had to be more careful. The truce they had found the last few days was fresh, and shouldn't be tested to such an extent. Segundus would at the very least ask him to leave Starecross. He might do worse.</p>
<p>Childermass waited, willing his heart to stop pounding, until Segundus’s footsteps sounded in the hallway. He opened the book in front of him again and looked down at it, making sure that his hands were firmly on the table, and his eyes on the page.</p>
<p>‘I could not find it,’ Segundus said. Childermass could tell that his cheeks were pink despite not being able to see him. ‘I am-’</p>
<p>‘If you say you are sorry one more time,’ Childermass said without looking up, ‘I will spell you into silence.’</p>
<p>There was a sharp moment where Childermass wondered if he’d gone too far, but then then Segundus laughed. It was nervous, but so sincere that it was all Childermass could do to keep his eyes fixed resolutely down. Even so, he could taste silver like sunlight coming through the clouds.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>By the end of the day, Childermass had fewer concerns that the truce might be broken by a simple conversation, that they would go back to their old ways now that Mr Honeyfoot was not watching them. He even tested it that evening, bringing up a topic that, in the past, would have certainly have been sensitive. Segundus, sat in a chair with his feet on a stool, and a book resting on his knee so that he could turn the pages with his good hand, simply smirked, told Childermass not to be disagreeable, and continued with his reading.</p>
<p>Childermass found that he rather preferred sitting quietly opposite Segundus, with books and gentle candlelight, rather than quarrelling with him. This was not much of a surprise – one of the reasons he had always been so willing to let Segundus get under his skin, to irritate him, was that he had known that once they stopped arguing, there would be trouble. He had known it from the moment he stood outside York Minster ten years ago, Segundus shivering in his thin coat, and inclined his head to allow him inside, even though Segundus had refused to sign Norrell’s contract. Norrell had chastised him for that, and Childermass had been forced to say that had misunderstood instructions, that he had not realised entry was only to be offered upon signing. Norrell had believed him, of course – he always found it convenient to assume that Childermass was not as clever as Norrell needed him to be – but Childermass could hardly fool himself. He could have suggested that any member of the York Society write to the London papers about what they had seen, but he had wanted it to be Segundus. He had seen Segundus in Norrell’s library, and he could not bear to have him miss the magic. </p>
<p>It had been easy enough to ignore when they were at odds. Now, though…</p>
<p>Well. Childermass was a grown man. Segundus might be helping him, but he doubtless only felt guilty about the unintended effects of <em>Restoration</em>. It was unfair for Childermass to read anything more into it than that. And there was that business with Miss Absalom. Childermass was not jealous of a mere vision – except in the magical sense – but he thought that Segundus may have shown a little of himself during the conversation. It rather gave Childermass the impression that if Segundus turned pink in front of beautiful women, he was unlikely to do the same when presented with someone like Childermass.</p>
<p>Perhaps he <em>was</em> jealous. Childermass was not so foolish as to think Segundus would be drawn by looks alone. And there were times that he looked up from his books, and saw Segundus watching him with such a gleam in his eye that Childermass wondered if the effects of <em>Restoration </em>stretched further than he thought. But Segundus always looked away if Childermass caught him. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>On the third day, they ran out of books. It had been inevitable – there were so few left in England. Segundus was hardly well-off, and Childermass had only what he could carry on Brewer. Short of returning to York to seek out more, it was clear that there was nothing further to be done by book-learning. </p>
<p>‘We are doing this all wrong,’ Segundus said, after they had sat in silence with all the books closed between them on the table. ‘We are trying to be like Mr Norrell, only without a library.’</p>
<p>Childermass raised an eyebrow. ‘Neither of us is Jonathan Strange, either.’</p>
<p>‘Of course not.' Segundus tutted. 'But if this is not an answer that we can look up, then we must undertake our own research. Mr Strange accomplished a great deal without books, through trial and experiment, and though neither of us are like him, I would say that we both have an instinct for magic – you especially.’ Segundus held up a hand as Childermass opened his mouth. ‘Do not be modest, it does not suit you. Now, you say that you are sensing things that you should not, or that are not in the right places, but if you can go into further detail – if we can find a pattern - then that will give us some idea of how to proceed. If we are to do further research, we must at least know where to begin.’</p>
<p>It was all Childermass could do not to flinch. He had, of course, come to the same conclusions as Segundus. But it would be harder to keep his distance once they began questioning the nature of what was happening to his senses. He wondered if he should persuade Segundus to give up, accept whatever was happening to him and go and find Levy and Purfois to make sure they were not getting into trouble. He was tired, and his head was a permanent ache, but he could manage. More tiring than the magic was making sure that he was not drawn by Segundus, or the strange new world around him, into doing something he’d regret.  </p>
<p>‘What I am experiencing is….difficult to describe,’ he said, measuring his words. ‘I’m not sure I will be able to make it clear.’</p>
<p>‘I understand that. But I think you must try, or we will never find the answer.’</p>
<p>‘We are probably wasting our time.’</p>
<p>'I do not believe so.' Segundus tapped his fingers on the table. 'There is always value in questioning magic, even if the answer is not clear.' </p>
<p>'You do not have to do this,' Childermass said, a last attempt. 'You are under no obligation.'</p>
<p>Segundus looked at him. Childermass expected him to say that of course he was under obligation, that Stonegate was his fault, but he did not.</p>
<p>‘I know,’ Segundus said, and he tipped his chin a little, the old stubbornness tightening around his jaw and mouth. ‘But I would like to help. This thing needs both of us, I think.’</p>
<p>Childermass bit his lip, gave in. </p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They spent the rest of the day trailing around different parts of the house and gardens. Segundus pointed at various things, asking Childermass if he noticed any colour, sound or smell about them. Childermass went into as much detail as he could, or dared, and then noted the details down on a piece of paper, seeing as Segundus could not write.</p>
<p>‘What about this?’ Segundus said, pointing to the clock in the hall.</p>
<p>Childermass listened to the tick of it for a moment, and said, truthfully, that it tasted of dust.</p>
<p>The afternoon went on and on. The sun coming through the east side of the house brought a sound like a harpsichord, the same as it had in High Petergate. A carving of a raven on one of the staircases seemed to move, fractionally, ready to take flight. The creak of a door was brassy in the dim house. Childermass’s headache grew worse, until it was pounding like waves on a shore, but he was careful. He did not slip, did not instinctively reach out and touch Segundus, even when Segundus's voice filled every room almost to the ceiling. </p>
<p>As they moved around Starecross, Childermass could not fail to see that Segundus had not exaggerated the work that still needed doing. Though it had made an adequate madhouse, it had only had one resident, and many of the rooms were musty and unused. Wood was spotted in places with damp or mould, and windows needed cleaning, even replacing. The sloping room at the very top of the house, which looked like it hadn't been used for years, had an abandoned feel so strong that it confused Childermass’s senses with the magic of the house, and he had to sit down for a few moments. The gardens were nearly as bad, a snarling of brambles and trees, haphazard and loudly untidy.</p>
<p>By evening, they were both exhausted, and resorted to eating bread and cheese for the third night in a row.</p>
<p>‘Charles is a better cook,’ Segundus said, scrubbing a line of dirt off his cheek with his thumb. ‘I hope that he will be back soon.’</p>
<p>Childermass did not. Though it was difficult to be alone with Segundus at Starecross, he did not like the idea of anyone else coming to disturb the peace that had crept up between them.</p>
<p>He yawned instead, stretching his jaw until it creaked.</p>
<p>‘Oh dear,’ Segundus said, ‘I am sorry to have tired you – perhaps I got rather carried away today.’</p>
<p>‘No. It was a good idea.’ Childermass pushed forward the notes he’d taken. Now that they were committed, he had no choice but to take the research seriously, and he was rather proud of managing in Segundus's company all day without betraying his thoughts. ‘We may well find something in these tomorrow.’</p>
<p>Segundus nodded. 'There is one other book we could try, I suppose. The King's Book.'</p>
<p>'Aye.' Childermass rubbed his temple. The headache had eased a little, but he was still sore. 'Though that particular book will only be along when it wants.'</p>
<p>Segundus made a noise of assent, then started in his chair. ‘Mr Childermass – your cards.’</p>
<p>Childermass blinked. ‘My-’</p>
<p>‘You have a set of cards, do you not? If you read them, they may point us in the right direction.’ He leaned forward. ‘It is worth a try, surely?’</p>
<p>Childermass gave in – it was becoming a bad habit, to give in to Segundus, but he could not deny that it was worth trying, even if the cards had been no help at High Petergate. He fetched the deck from his coat, shuffled. The cards felt good in his hands, familiar, and they did not muddle his senses like other forms of magic. Mr Norrell had always dismissed them as a low sort of trick, but Segundus edged forward eagerly to watch.</p>
<p>The cards did not reveal anything that appeared relevant to <em>Restoration and Rectification</em>, or their research, but Segundus did not seem to care.</p>
<p>‘May I try?’ he said, his voice moving cloudy through the kitchen.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was the proximity of Segundus across the table, or the gentle pride that his interest brought, but Childermass did not object. He picked up the deck and handed it to Segundus. Slowly, Segundus laid out the pattern, and turned the cards over.</p>
<p>‘Oh dear,’ he said, after scanning them. ‘I am not sure I have your skill for this.’</p>
<p>Childermass, against his better judgement, picked up his chair and moved it to Segundus’s side of the table. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘let me show you what they mean.’</p>
<p>It quickly became clear that Segundus had no natural ability to read the cards the way Childermass could, but Segundus did not seem upset by this. He gently reached out and touched the cards, one-by-one, as Childermass explained them. Childermass was surprised to find that he did not mind Segundus doing this. He usually objected strongly to anyone interfering with the deck.  </p>
<p>‘Can you read them again?’ Segundus said, ‘perhaps I will understand better if I watch you.’</p>
<p>Childermass shouldn’t have done it. He was taken up by the way that Segundus looked at him so admiringly, the traces of silver drifting in his voice, and he grew careless. He shuffled the cards and, with his thoughts distracted by the press of Segundus’s shoulder against his own, laid them out. He turned them over slowly, allowing Segundus to take them in.</p>
<p>In the middle of the bottom row, he revealed, quite plainly, <em>l'amoureux</em>.</p>
<p>Segundus let out a soft noise. The candle flickered, and Childermass froze with the card still curled in his hand. When he had drawn <em>l'amoureux</em>, many, many years ago, he had merely copied the design from the original. Now, in the dim kitchen, with Segundus close and breathing against him, the figures seemed almost obscene. Childermass went hot all the way down to his stomach.</p>
<p>He let the card drop. It was too late to hide it.</p>
<p>‘There are many meanings to this one,’ he said. His voice was measured, but his mouth was dry. ‘Choice. Beauty. Peace.’</p>
<p>‘Oh,’ Segundus said. He sounded distant. ‘I see.’</p>
<p>Childermass flipped over the rest of the cards, not looking at them. ‘Nothing of significance here, I think.’ He cleared his throat, shuffled the cards together and put them into his pocket. ‘I am rather tired. I shall retire, I think.’</p>
<p>Segundus said nothing. Childermass turned and retreated to the safety of his room, hands burning. Bloody fool he was, letting his thoughts stray like that – goodness knew what Segundus thought.</p>
<p>He did not sleep well that night. Segundus had seemed too shocked to speak in the kitchen, but by morning he might come to his senses, and ask Childermass to leave.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Childermass slept longer than he usually did. He had spent most of the night coming up with explanations for <em>l'amoureux</em> that would alleviate any suspicions Segundus might have, but all of them were hollow, and by the time he rose the morning was well underway. He dressed slowly, mind racing, and was so distracted that he did not notice there were voices in the hall until he was almost at the bottom of the stairs. </p>
<p>‘Mr Childermass!’ Honeyfoot exclaimed, his yellow voice breaking through the peace of the morning light. ‘I would have sent the letter here if I had thought you were still at Starecross, but I had assumed you had gone on to meet them by now.'</p>
<p>Childermass blinked stupidly. </p>
<p>'Mr Levy and Mr Purfois.' Honeyfoot stepped forward. 'Though I suppose it is not very urgent, as they only said they have not found anything yet.’</p>
<p>'Oh.' Childermass scrambled for something to say, but his head was still filled with apologies and excuses for Segundus, and he could not bring the words together. 'I see.'</p>
<p>Segundus came quickly to his rescue. ‘Mr Childermass has been helping me to tidy the hall,’ he said. ‘I would have found it difficult alone with my arm.’</p>
<p>Honeyfoot glanced at the garden behind them, which was no doubt as wild as it had been when he had left. Then, he turned to Segundus.</p>
<p>‘And you have been…’ His eyes went for a moment to Childermass. ‘Well?’</p>
<p>‘Oh yes.’ Segundus cleared his throat. ‘Mr Childermass and I have been getting by.’</p>
<p>Honeyfoot smiled. ‘Well, that is quite gratifying. And it rather explains why he came with me.’</p>
<p>Childermass did not ask who – he had already caught sight of Vinculus’s hat through the window.</p>
<p>‘Though I cannot imagine how he knew,’ Honeyfoot said, ‘for we have not seen any sign of him around High Petergate.’</p>
<p>‘That is Vinculus for you,’ Childermass said, walking past Segundus without looking at him, towards the door. ‘He has a way of finding things.’</p>
<p>Honeyfoot’s voice faded behind him as he stepped into the garden. The wind was bitter. Frost glittered on the stone path that led to the house, and the crunch of it under his boots was sharp on his tongue.</p>
<p>‘Reader!’ Vinculus grinned at him. His coat was, if possible, dirtier than usual, and he had a ragged magpie feather stuck jauntily in his cap. ‘You are looking well.’</p>
<p>‘Where have you been?’ Childermass said, glad that Vinculus had his coat fully buttoned so that he could not see the twisting blue words on his skin – in the sudden sounds and tastes of the garden, it might have been too much.</p>
<p>‘Here and there. About. Once I knew that you were in safe hands, I have been having a very good time by myself. Did you know there is a woman in York who, if you give her a shilling, will-’</p>
<p>‘That’s enough.’ Childermass made his face stern, though he lacked the energy to be truly angry. ‘You should not wander off.’</p>
<p>‘You are the one who left York, not I.’ Vinculus looked around the overgrown garden. ‘Honeyfoot tells me they are going to tidy this place up.’</p>
<p>‘Yes.’</p>
<p>‘Been helping Mr Segundus with that, have you?’</p>
<p>Childermass did not hesitate. ‘Yes.’</p>
<p>‘Really?’ Vinculus looked at a patch of bramble that spilled like a storm across the path. ‘Not got very far, have you? Been busy with other things?’</p>
<p>Childermass narrowed his eyes, but Vinculus bounded off before he could speak, singing a rude song loudly enough to make the stones ring.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was simpler with company at Starecross. Honeyfoot had the seeming ability to be in several places at once, bustling and tutting, and it was impossible to know if you were truly alone when Vinculus was nearby, so there would be no more dangerously private conversations. Even so, Childermass was wary around Segundus for the rest of the day, waiting for him to demand an explanation for <em>l'amoureux</em>. But Segundus was taken up with Honeyfoot and discussions about the hall, and even in the quiet moments when Childermass caught his eye, he betrayed nothing.</p>
<p>What with one thing and another, it was after noon before Childermass managed to sit Vinculus down in a quiet part of the garden, not too overgrown but still sheltered from the wind, to examine the Letters. Perhaps he should have waited, but he wanted to keep his distance from Segundus. Besides, as Childermass was the only one who could understand the Book there did not seem not much point in having company.</p>
<p>He was soon glad he had not asked Segundus to help him. He had had the thought that the effects of <em>Restoration </em>might make the Letters easier to decipher, but the writing was more impenetrable than usual, twisting and changing even as Childermass tried to keep his eye in the same place. Usually he had to disconnect his thoughts and let them wander over the Letters until he came as if by chance upon an answer, but it was impossible with the words moving at seemingly random speeds and directions over Vinculus's skin. </p>
<p>‘What is wrong with you, Reader?’ Vinculus said, after they had sat for nearly an hour and Childermass had not written a single thing in his notes.</p>
<p>‘Nothing.’ Childermass's head throbbed, but he was not going to try and explain to Vinculus. It would only be a hindrance. ‘I am tired, that is all.’</p>
<p>A breeze rustled the trees, bringing the taste of snow. Childermass leaned back to rub his sore eyes, and when he opened them again Vinculus had shifted so that his face was only inches away from Childermass’s. Childermass swatted him away, but Vinculus dodged with the ease of someone used to avoiding physical attempts to repel him. His eyes were sharp as glass.</p>
<p>‘Hm,’ he said, sniffing deeply. ‘There is something that you are not telling me.’</p>
<p>‘There are many things that I don’t tell you. Mainly because you are incapable of keeping your mouth shut.’ Childermass schooled his face into what he hoped was disgust, rather than unease. ‘And do not sniff people. Most folk don’t like it.’</p>
<p>‘Now, Reader…’</p>
<p>‘Sit still,’ Childermass snapped, ‘we will carry on.’</p>
<p>He spent another agonising half-hour trying to Read, until Vinculus refused to sit still any longer and went inside, leaving Childermass amongst the trees with a rising nausea and the twist of worry in his gut.</p>
<p>He almost mentioned it to Segundus that evening, but decided against it. He did not know how to explain, and he was not sure it would be wise to try. It seemed that Segundus was going to make no mention of what had happened with <em>l'amoureux </em>- his expressions were less guarded, and he was talkative over their supper - but that did not mean Childermass should allow himself to grow so careless again.</p>
<p>It would be sensible, as they could not continue their research with Honeyfoot at the hall, for Childermass to leave. He was beginning to question Levy and Purfois’s ability to find a fairy if it should come up to them and tweak their noses, and he knew he should go and supervise them. He was growing used to his new way of seeing, even if the effect it had had on his Reading was worrying. He would be in no more danger than before, especially if he was not alone.</p>
<p>In the end, though, he decided to stay a little longer – just a day or two – and help with the house. Honeyfoot believed that was why he was here, and Segundus had given up three days to research <em>Restoration</em>. It was the least Childermass could do.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The weather was fair the next morning, so they began with the gardens, but it was achingly slow work. Though there were four of them, Mr Honeyfoot had his bad leg, and Segundus only one arm, and Childermass sometimes had to sit down if he stumbled across a place where the sounds and colours of Starecross’s magic were too strong. As for Vinculus, he had never been one to do his fair share of toil, and made it quite clear that he did not consider it his duty to do anything more than make rude remarks.</p>
<p>‘We are a sorry lot,’ Mr Honeyfoot said at noon, when the three of them gathered outside the house. ‘I rather think that we will be here until the turn of the century if we go on like this.’</p>
<p>‘Can you not get help in?’ Childermass rubbed his hand where he had scratched it in the brambles at the bottom of the garden. The stinging did not bother him - in fact, it was rather settling - but it was clear that there was too much work to be done with only two or three people. </p>
<p>‘We do not have the funds.’ Segundus sighed. ‘Mrs Lennox is generous, but until the place is running…’</p>
<p>‘No,' Mr Honeyfoot said. ‘There is something in what Mr Childermass says.’</p>
<p>‘What do you mean?’</p>
<p>‘Well, it is the winter now. I am sure there are some in Starecross Village who would be happy to come and help in return for a good meal and some company.’</p>
<p>Segundus glanced at the house. ‘But we have no cook.’</p>
<p>‘Of course you do,’ a voice said from the path. Childermass turned around.</p>
<p>‘Charles!’ Segundus stepped forward. ‘How is your aunt?’</p>
<p>‘Much better, thank you.’ Charles smiled. He was windblown, and seemed taller than the last time Childermass had seen him. His voice was the colour of a well-worn cartwheel. ‘I did not mean to eavesdrop, but I heard someone around the back and thought I had better tell you as soon as possible. I did not expect you to have company.’</p>
<p>‘It will only be Vinculus that you heard,’ Honeyfoot said. ‘Mr Childermass is kindly staying on for a few days to help us with the house.’</p>
<p>As he spoke, Honeyfoot turned to Childermass and smiled. Childermass blinked, then returned it with a nod. Quietly, he was pleased – Honeyfoot had, understandably, been rather uneasy around him in the past. </p>
<p>Charles set down a battered-looking bag and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Mr Segundus,’ he said, ‘what has happened to your arm?’</p>
<p>The question prompted lengthy explanations that Childermass mostly remained silent for, slouching against the wall of the house and letting Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot tell it between them. His thoughts drifted – it had been a long day already, and he was tired – until he became aware that someone had said his name.</p>
<p>‘Hm?’</p>
<p>‘Charles says that he is quite happy to help us prepare food,’ Segundus said, ‘for Mr Honeyfoot’s idea.’</p>
<p>‘This place is rather a curiosity in the village,’ Charles added. ‘I am sure that some would come simply to explore.’</p>
<p>‘And I asked what your opinion was, Mr Childermass.’ Segundus turned to him with such a look of eager sincerity that Childermass heard it like a bell. ‘What do you think?’</p>
<p>‘I can see no harm in it,’ he said, which was the truth. He had already resigned himself to the loss of Segundus’s company, whether there were four people at Starecross, or forty. ‘Hot food and good drink will usually bring folk to you.’</p>
<p>So it was decided.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The first day was a success. Word travelled fast in the village, and they had around fifteen volunteers – men, women and children. Most of the work was to be done outside, which Childermass was glad of – though the garden had its own sensations, fifteen new ones in the confines of the house would have been too much. In particular, there was a woman who brought the smell of mint with her wherever she walked, and one of the children had a voice that was a colour that Childermass could not even identify.  </p>
<p>‘Are you well?’ Segundus asked him early in the day, soon after he had finished introducing himself and Mr Honeyfoot, warned people not to be alarmed by Vinculus, and pointed out which parts of the garden needed the most attention.</p>
<p>‘What do you mean?’</p>
<p>‘I realised that you might be…affected by so many people. I should have thought of it before we invited them.’</p>
<p>‘I am well enough.’ Childermass let his gaze go sideways to Segundus, drinking in the twisting sky of his voice until the rest of the colours and sounds faded out around them. ‘For a time, at least.’</p>
<p>Segundus nodded. ‘I am sorry that we have neglected our studies. Mr Honeyfoot is eager to get the house in order, and I cannot think of a way around it.’</p>
<p>Childermass shrugged. He should tell Segundus that he was leaving soon, to save him from worrying, but he remained silent. If said it out loud, he would have to do it.</p>
<p>They stood for a minute, perhaps more, until Segundus let out a long breath, murmured something about the weather being pleasantly mild for the time of year, and went to find Mr Honeyfoot. Childermass stood for a little longer, watching the purple sway of the moor in the distance, then shook his head, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Cold meat and bread was served for lunch, everyone gathering outside the old house until breath rose like a fog into the sky. The children ran around the garden, playing hide-fox and catch. People chattered and laughed. Childermass stood to the side – more than a few of the villagers had given him wary looks throughout the morning, and it was easier on his senses – but he watched as Segundus weaved amongst them, asking names, making conversation, thanking them for their time. He seemed more confident at Starecross than he might have elsewhere, and two of the children took to following him about, asking questions about magic which he answered with enthusiasm.</p>
<p>He would make a good schoolmaster, Childermass decided – not that it was up to him to decide any longer.</p>
<p>The light began to fade early. Childermass’s shoulders ached and his hands were scratched and bloody, but his head pounded less, and one or two of the volunteers even dared to smile at him as the afternoon wore on. Hot stew was brought out for supper. Some of the brambles which had been torn down and cleared were lit, and potatoes put into them to bake. Women gathered around the flames, talking. Mr Honeyfoot spoke with a group of men by the house. People, young and old, stared at Vinculus, who lounged against a tree with his blue skin showing through his ragged coat, eating a potato and breathing out the steam like he was smoking a pipe. Twice, Childermass tried to smoke his own pipe – the cold weather put him in the mood for it – but there were too many people, and the tobacco only confused his senses further. He gave it up and fell to watching Segundus, who stood near the fire with the women. The light of the flames shone red and orange through the clouds in his voice.</p>
<p>The sky darkened to blue, then black. A fat winter moon hung above the house. The fire sputtered into embers, and people began to trickle away. Segundus caught Charles nodding by the kitchen door, and insisted that he retire early.</p>
<p>‘We will clean up in the morning,’ he said firmly, ‘you have done more than your fair share.’</p>
<p>The burning brambles crackled and spat. Mr Honeyfoot waved off the last of the volunteers – Childermass did not wave, but he stood and watched them go – and then they returned to the house, leaving Vinculus watching the ashes of the fire with a strange, gleaming look in his eyes.</p>
<p>‘Well,’ Honeyfoot said in the hallway, taking off his hat and shaking the dirt off it. ‘I would say that was a very good day.’</p>
<p>Segundus smiled. He was covered in grime and twigs, but it was a triumphant smile.</p>
<p>‘Though,’ Honeyfoot went on – the yellow around him seemed a little faded, as though the long day had rubbed the shine of it away, ‘I am somewhat tired. I think I shall bid you goodnight.’</p>
<p>Childermass stretched, rolling out the knots in his shoulders, and watched Honeyfoot go towards the stairs. He should fetch Vinculus inside, and try again to Read…</p>
<p>Segundus yawned. ‘I’m rather tired myself,’ he said, ‘I do not think I will do much research tonight. I am sorry.’</p>
<p>Childermass shrugged. ‘It can wait.’</p>
<p>‘I suppose. But we should not neglect it. I do not think we will get much chance this week - several of the people who came today said they would return tomorrow, to help us finish, and if you do not wish Mr Honeyfoot to know…’ Segundus sighed. ‘I think he feels that he must keep a close watch on me. He can hardly believe that you and I are on speaking terms.’</p>
<p>Childermass laughed, but his throat was tight – they were on dangerous ground again. ‘Sometimes, I don't believe it myself. Now-’</p>
<p>‘Wait.’ Segundus took a deep breath. He had a streak of mud over his left brow, half-rubbed away. ‘I wanted you to know that I…I do not find it that strange. I think we only started out wrongly - if you had not been made to shut the school the first time, we might have…I do not know. But I have enjoyed your company, this last week Mr Childermass, unusual though it has been, and I am sorry if any of the things that I said to you in the past were hurtful. I am not usually so easily angered, but – and I hope you will forgive me if I am wrong in saying this – I rather think that the both of us have behaved badly, at times.’</p>
<p>Childermass blinked. He should accept Segundus’s apology, offer his own, say that the company of the last week had been agreeable – nothing more meaningful than that – and bid Segundus goodnight. But the words didn't come. Segundus was so close that Childermass could taste the bramble ash on him, and...</p>
<p>He took a deep breath and pulled back sharply. Too sharply - Segundus started, knocking against a chair that had been shifted from the wall in the course of the day. He stumbled, put out his bound arm to steady himself, and gasped.</p>
<p>‘I am alright,’ he said, before Childermass could speak. ‘It just…it has been a long day.’</p>
<p>‘You have done too much,’ Childermass said. He had been so caught up in the work, keeping himself busy, that he had not thought of Segundus’s arm.</p>
<p>Segundus shook his head, but he winced when he tried to pull the sling back into place.</p>
<p>‘Here,’ Childermass said, before he could stop himself, because he had experience with bruises and breaks, aches and pains, and he couldn’t bear not to help Segundus if it was possible, ‘let me see.’</p>
<p>Segundus hesitated, but then he nodded. ‘The kitchen. The light will be better there.’</p>
<p>Their feet made a soft, violet noise on the floor as they entered the kitchen. Childermass lit a candle at the still-flickering fire, brought it to the table whilst Segundus pulled up a chair and sat. Segundus lifted the sling from his shoulder and put it on his lap. Childermass bent over the arm, gently lifted it. The doctor had bound it with wood and linen, and the skin around the splint was red and irritated. There were bruises, too, reaching to Segundus’s palm, brown and purple and yellow. Childermass could feel the ache of them where his fingers rested against Segundus’s wrist.</p>
<p>‘The doctor said that it is normal for it to look like that,’ Segundus said. ‘A few weeks to heal, and longer to get the strength back in it, but it will mend.’</p>
<p>Childermass remembered the way that Segundus had brought up his arm in Stonegate, the crack of a wheel going over a stick. He could taste it now, like copper.</p>
<p>‘I am sorry that I was not in a better position to help you,’ he murmured. He kept his eyes resolutely on the arm, not looking at Segundus or the sky about him, but he could still feel the birdlike shudder of Segundus’s pulse under his thumb.</p>
<p>‘You did well enough.’ </p>
<p>Childermass swallowed. ‘I do not think it looks further injured from today.’ He forced his tone to be brisk, though he knew nothing other than the arm did not taste or smell recently disturbed or damaged, which he did not feel inclined to explain. ‘But perhaps you should find a doctor to look at it when you have the chance.’</p>
<p>Segundus nodded. Childermass let out a sigh of relief - he had only done was what any acquaintance would, nothing stranger than that - and began to straighten.</p>
<p>Segundus touched his shoulder.</p>
<p>‘John,’ he said.</p>
<p>Childermass’s heart stepped sideways in his chest. Half on his feet, with his legs bent and his balance tipped, he either had to shake off Segundus’s touch and stand, or allow himself to fall. He hovered for a moment, then lowered his knees the floor, so that he was kneeling by Segundus’s chair, his hands still on the splinted arm, and Segundus’s fingers on his shoulder. He looked up. The kitchen filled with the smell of moor heather, aching and strong.</p>
<p>Segundus’s eyes were in shadow, a little unwise, wild in the firelight. His pulse fluttered under Childermass’s palm.</p>
<p>Childermass tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. Segundus lifted his left hand and brought it to Childermass's face. His thumb rested underneath Childermass’s eye, so that Childermass felt the brush of it against his lashes when he blinked. He lifted a little on his knees, shins pressed sore against the cold floor, and Segundus leaned forwards, about to speak, or something else, something…  </p>
<p>A voice rang through the house like a shot, shaking the stones. Childermass jerked back, almost going sprawling. Segundus stumbled to his feet, pulling his splinted arm from Childermass’s hold with a gasp.</p>
<p>‘Hello!’ the voice cried again. ‘Anyone awake?’</p>
<p>Segundus ran to the doorway. ‘Hello?’ he called. His voice shook, and the sky around him churned and shuddered. He looked back, once, at Childermass, then turned and vanished into the hall.</p>
<p>Childermass knelt stupidly by the empty chair, heart pounding, until he realised that his thoughts were too tangled to think of a good excuse as to why he was on the floor if someone came into the kitchen, and that he must get up, quickly. His head span as he did so, dizzy with the smell of heather that lingered hot in the air.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>‘We looked for you in York,’ Purfois said, refreshing himself with a glass of wine whilst Levy shook frost off his boots. The firelight threw shadows across the the kitchen, which seemed horribly cramped with the four of them in it. It did not help that Childermass’s insides were still uncomfortably warm, or that Purfois’s voice filled the room with the cloying taste of over-ripe blackberries.</p>
<p>‘However, as you were not there,’ Purfois went on, 'we thought we would ride and see this old place for ourselves.’</p>
<p>‘You are very welcome,’ Segundus said. He was sitting in the same chair that he had been only a few minutes before, his sling back in place and his left hand resting neatly on the table. Nothing showed in his face of what had almost happened, except that he seemed rather pale.</p>
<p>Childermass looked away, turning to Levy – Purfois might hold himself more like the gentleman, but Childermass knew who was the better magician. ‘Did you find the thing I wrote to you of?’</p>
<p>Levy opened his mouth, but Purfois cut across him. ‘No. We spent days tramping all over the blasted moor looking for fairies. Not a sign.’</p>
<p>‘Nothing?’ Childermass said, still looking at Levy.</p>
<p>‘I fear not.’ Levy sighed. His voice was a soft green light that, though dim, had the sense of a tide, constantly growing and retreating. ‘We asked the people living nearby, but none of them have seen anything. There have been no disappearances, though that may be due to your warnings.’</p>
<p>Purfois finished his wine with a smack. ‘We tried a bit of magic between the two of us as well. No use at all.’</p>
<p>‘But…’ Levy pressed his fingernail into the table, digging at a splinter. ‘There was a feeling.’</p>
<p>Purfois snorted. ‘You and your feelings. I did not feel anything, except the miserable cold.’</p>
<p>‘What feeling?’ Childermass said.</p>
<p>‘I am not sure only. Only…a sense of being watched. Though that may be the fact I am not used to such open spaces – I grew up in Norwich, in a rather narrow part of-’</p>
<p>‘Yes, yes.’ Purfois got up and went without asking to the wine bottle that Segundus had left on the other side of the table. ‘That must have been it. We think that whatever you saw must be gone, if it was there at all.’</p>
<p>Segundus frowned and opened his mouth, but Childermass caught his eye, shook his head. He knew what he had seen, and he did not need to start an argument, especially when he could hardly keep his eyes away from the chair Segundus was sitting in, where they had almost… </p>
<p>He cleared his throat, turned back to Levy. But, despite Childermass’s best attempts, Levy would say nothing else on the matter.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Two interruptions in as many chapters – I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not really. This was a tricky one, and I like a disrupted moment.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Childermass could not sleep. His senses buzzed, and he was still queasy with the smell of heather. He thought about going to Segundus’s room and continuing where they had left off – he was not sure exactly where that was, only that he wished they had not been interrupted – but he did not dare. There were too many people at Starecross, and if he was seen going to Segundus’s room so late at night it would invite questions that would be difficult to answer without landing them both in front of a magistrate.</p>
<p>Even so, he listened for a knock on his door. Segundus knew the house better than him, and might be less cautious – he’d had a rash look about him in the kitchen. Just the thought of it made Childermass want to get up and pace the room.</p>
<p>But Segundus did not come, and Childermass at last gave up listening for him. It was for the best – there would be time to speak later.</p>
<p>Sleep should have been easier once he had resolved that he must wait until morning, but it was not. Segundus or no, Childermass did not like what Levy had said in the kitchen. Purfois might have dismissed it, but Childermass had more sense. Whatever dwelled in that place was still there, and Childermass had neglected his duty of it too long. He had promised to return, and that was what he must do.</p>
<p>This left him in the strange position of needing to leave, and not wanting to. He thought on it for a time in the darkness, even sat up with the covers pulled to his waist and turned over his cards in the pitch black, reading them by touch, but they did not give him an answer. He had known they would not. No piece of magic had the power to make up his mind for him.</p>
<p>In the end, he decided that he must go, and as early as possible. If Purfois would not come, he would take only Levy, seeing as Levy would be more useful. It would not take long to pack, but he was of a mind to leave Vinculus at Starecross so that they could ride faster. And he must speak to Segundus before he made any attempt to leave. He had tied himself to that last night when he had allowed Segundus to push him to the floor.</p>
<p>It should have frightened him, but he was curiously excited. It was inconvenient for him to go now, but Segundus would understand that he had a duty, once Childermass explained. And when he came back…well.</p>
<p>Mind lighter for having made a decision, he returned his cards to his coat and finally settled into a doze. His dreams were restless, beginning with Segundus and the smell of heather, but twisting as a shadow crept into them, a dark thing that followed him with a dogged sense of menace until he woke, disconcerted and sore-eyed, at dawn.</p>
<p>He lay for a time, blinking in the dim room and listening to the rustle of the wind outside. It was a cold wind, one that brought the snap of ice on his skin as it slipped around the house and tugged on the shutters, asking to be let in. Childermass had the urge to pull the covers up over his head until it went away, then laughed at himself for having such a foolish thought. </p>
<p>‘Come,’ he said at last, rubbing a hand over his face. ‘Time gets away from you.’</p>
<p>He felt a little better after he had dressed and washed his face. He stretched, put on his coat. The rustle of his stockings was warm on the deserted staircase as he headed downstairs, collected his hat and boots, and went into the garden. The wind had eased a little, playing gold and white around the hedges and brambles. Childermass put his hands in his pockets, watched the sun rise. He was restless, but he remained by the front door. He knew that Segundus liked to step into the grounds when he first woke, no matter what time it was, and take in the morning. Childermass did not want to miss him.</p>
<p>A bird trilled in the bushes. Frost glittered musically on the grass. Childermass took his pipe from his coat pocket, closed his eyes against the soft sounds and colours of the garden, and lit it. The smoke calmed him, but not as much as he would have liked. He was nervous, and excited, like a schoolboy waiting to catch sight of a girl.</p>
<p>Another absurd thought. He chuckled to himself amongst the stones.</p>
<p>When pipe smoke became too much, he doused it and tapped the bowl against the wall of the house to clear the ash. The rapid <em>tok-tok </em>rang through the empty garden. Childermass cleared his throat, wished he had a cup of water, but did not dare go to fetch one. If Segundus had slept as poorly as he had – was it strange for Childermass to hope it? – it would not be long before he had company.</p>
<p>The sunlight grew stronger. There were some clouds, but not too thick. Childermass hoped that it would not rain. He did not mind bad weather, but Levy might, and Childermass was particularly keen to have Levy with him when he rode to York.</p>
<p>‘Oh.’</p>
<p>A soft noise, an exhale. Childermass turned. Segundus, only just dressed, his shirt rumpled and his eyes sleepy. The sight sent a warmth through Childermass like he had taken a seat in front of a fire.</p>
<p>‘Good morning.’ He kept his voice level, though his blood sang in his veins. He should have tried to get more sleep – he was unsteady, and they hadn’t even begun. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’</p>
<p>Segundus blinked. Had he not expected Childermass to be here, waiting? Childermass smiled at the thought. </p>
<p>‘Alone,’ he added, in case Segundus assumed that he wanted to make conversation on some small, unimportant business. ‘Would you walk with me?’     </p>
<p>He offered his arm to Segundus's unbound one, making a joke of it, as if they were stepping out with a chaperone.</p>
<p>Segundus edged back. ‘I cannot.’</p>
<p>Childermass withdrew his arm, then glanced at the house. Perhaps he was too bold – if someone saw Segundus close…</p>
<p>‘Walk with me, then,’ he said, gesturing to the path, ‘we can find a place where we won’t be overheard.’</p>
<p>Segundus shook his head. He was pale, and the look that Childermass had first taken for sleep-tousled now seemed closer to exhausted. The shadows under his eyes stung on Childermass’s tongue.  </p>
<p>‘I have business to attend to.’ Segundus’s voice was hoarse, fogged and grey in the dawn light. ‘I only stepped out for some air.’</p>
<p>Segundus began to turn. Instinctively, Childermass reached out and caught hold of his left arm. ‘Wait. Last night-’</p>
<p>‘I made a mistake, and I beg you to forgive me.’ Segundus kept his gaze on Childermass’s left shoulder. His skin was cold through his thin shirt. ‘Please.’</p>
<p>‘You don't need my forgiveness. That is why I wanted to speak with you, so that you know that I am- ’</p>
<p>‘No.’ Segundus did not try and pull away, but his shoulders trembled. ‘Say nothing, I beg you.’</p>
<p>Childermass could not find the words. Crack willow scratched the back of his throat. ‘You…’</p>
<p>‘I know what I did.’ Segundus lowered his gaze again, fixed it somewhere on Childermass’s boots. ‘I am sorry for it.’</p>
<p>Childermass opened his mouth, but no sound came out.</p>
<p>‘I am sorry.’ Segundus looked up at last. His eyes gleamed, but his jaw had that old, stubborn tightness. ‘Please let me go.’</p>
<p>If Segundus had shouted, or tried to fight him, Childermass might have held on. But the look on Segundus’s face was something more than that, something that made the sky in his voice shiver. The shadows on his face were long and impenetrable.</p>
<p>Childermass let go. Segundus turned and fled into the house, footsteps ringing purple. The wind stirred the trees, and Childermass stood, staring at the spot where Segundus had been.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Childermass could not understand it. Was Segudus afraid? He had been bold the night before. Childermass did not blame him for pulling away when Levy and Purfois had come in, because he was not a fool, and he knew what might happen if they were caught, but that did not explain why he would act the same way when they were alone. Childermass had not been angry. He had made it perfectly clear that he wished to speak, not argue.  </p>
<p>One night – did it really make so much difference? It had been Segundus who had touched Childermass's shoulder in the kitchen, taken away the last of Childermass’s doubts that he was only imagining what he had always felt, under the arguments and the quarrels and the sharp moments they had endured since they first met, and the softer ones that had come since, the quiet conversations, <em>l’amoreaux </em>in the gentle light of the hearth. </p>
<p>What he might have changed was beyond Childermass's comprehension. They had not spoken since the kitchen. He had done nothing, said nothing. His thoughts went round in dizzying circles, searching for some way that he might have caused offence, though he knew that it had been Segundus leaning forward, when Childermass had been prepared to take his leave without doing anything, because had not been sure, but Segundus had…</p>
<p>He remained rooted outside the front door, mind racing, until he realised that there were people at the gate. Volunteers, coming to carry out the second day’s work. They brought with them seething twists of lights and colours and smells that made him seasick, until at last he had to move his head, to take his eyes away from them before he had to sit down. As he turned, he shivered. He was cold – he had not noticed it before, but he was not sure how long he had been standing in the wind. Instinctively, he brought his hands to his mouth and blew on them. His fingers stung, and with it, like he had torn off a scab, came a rush of anger that stole his breath. </p>
<p>He was moving before he realised that he was doing it. He pushed through the group of volunteers, raising eyebrows as he barged past them, around the house to the stables. The horses snorted as he flung back the door with a bang. Brewer looked rather shabby next to the new pair, that must have belonged to Levy and Purfois, but he had not had enough exercise the past few days, and was eager to be out. Childermass saddled him quickly, making the familiar motions without registering them, and they made a good pace down the winding roads and tracks. Soon they were miles from Starecross, onto the seething moor. The rattle of the wind in the heather made a taste like snow on Childermass’s tongue, a searing cold that cleared his thoughts. He set his chin into the freezing air, breath rising towards the silver sky, and urged Brewer on.  </p>
<p>The morning slipped past, but Childermass did not care. Let Honeyfoot and the others wonder where he had gone – he was his own master now, and it was no-one’s business. He pulled his collar up. He had not brought his scarf, and his eyes watered from the cold. It was good, though, to be cold. If he had been the sort of person to shout uselessly into the wind, he would have.</p>
<p>At last, though, the anger began to burn out of him. The moors were high and reaching, and it was impossible not to notice the sky as he rode, the clouds scattered over the winter sun. They made him think of Segundus’s voice.</p>
<p>He cursed, looked down. He had known that Segundus was dangerous, and he had ignored every instinct, and why? Because Segundus had saved his life?</p>
<p>No. Because afterwards, in High Petergate, Segundus had looked into him and asked him what was wrong so sincerely that Childermass had told him.</p>
<p>He had felt...safe.</p>
<p>Complacent, rather. Who did Segundus think he was, to toy with Childermass like he was nothing more than an amusement, fine for a single evening, but unwanted after that?  But even as he thought it, he knew it was not right. Segundus had not dismissed him lightly, if the look on his face in the garden was anything to go by. </p>
<p>Then again, maybe it was nothing to go by. Childermass had thought he understood Segundus, but now...</p>
<p>He considered riding until he reached York, even going beyond it to the place where he had seen the fairy – he was quite in the mood to confront it again – but he knew that it was beyond foolish. He had nothing with him but the clothes he wore, and he had not even dressed for a long ride. His things, though they were few, were still at Starecross. So was Vinculus, and Levy.</p>
<p>He would go back, then, if only for as long as it took Brewer to rest. He would not have to see Segundus, and if he happened upon him, he would not speak to him. He would deal with the fairy, and then...what?</p>
<p>Childermass shook his head. He would go south, perhaps to London. Once Childermass was away, he would not give John Segundus a second thought. </p>
<p>He tasted the lie of it, even though he had not said it out loud.  </p>
<p>The ride towards Starecross was harder than the one away. Though it was not late, the light dulled, and Childermass was cold. His flits of anger became less frequent, replaced with an emptiness in his chest made his joints ache.</p>
<p>He could not understand it. That was the worst of it – if there had been some reason, if he had offended Segundus in some way, it would be different. But he could make no sense of the look that Segundus had given him, like Childermass was something dreadful. </p>
<p>The air had a blue tinge by the time Starecross came into sight, promising bad weather. Childermass made a thief’s entrance, going around the back of the house and directly to the stable rather than approaching from the front. Once out of the wind, he stamped his feet and shook some warmth back into his hands, then fetched straw and water. He expected Brewer to be tired, but he was strangely restless as Childermass rubbed him down, shifting and tossing his head.</p>
<p>‘Hey,’ Childermass said, after he had been knocked on the chin for the second time. ‘What’s got into you?’</p>
<p>Brewer pulled against his rope, snorted. Childermass frowned, checked Brewer’s hooves and legs to see if he’d picked up a stone or scrape, but there was nothing. Perhaps there was a bird or bat somewhere in the rafters – Levy and Purfois’s horses seemed agitated too, champing and huffing in their stalls.</p>
<p>Childermass considered staying in the stables for a while – no-one had seen him arrive, so they would not come looking for him – but it felt too much like a coward’s refuge. Instead, he stretched, easing out the knots that riding had tied in his shoulders and neck, and took a deep breath. He would need a steady countenance if he was to go back into the house, but he had dealt with worse than John Segundus before now. He would endure it, and then he would be gone.</p>
<p>He glanced once more around the stable, but, finding no sign of birds or bats, left with the promise to return with an apple.</p>
<p>The grounds were busy. People milled about, dragging branches, tools and rubbish. Childermass kept to the shadows, looking warily for Segundus, but there was no sign of him. That was good. He only had to find Vinculus and Levy, and then….</p>
<p>Childermass turned towards the house. He blinked. Blinked again.</p>
<p>Smoke billowed around Starecross, grey and choking, swelling and surrounding the eaves, the windows, the entire roof…</p>
<p>For a moment, words escaped him. Then, he started forward, shouting.</p>
<p>‘Fire!’ he called. ‘Fire!’</p>
<p>‘What?’ A man in a low cap looked up. ‘Where?’</p>
<p>‘There!’ Childermass pointed at the roof. </p>
<p>‘Are you mad?’ the man retorted, turning away.</p>
<p>Childermass stared after him, then span, seized the first person in reach. Purfois. He had dirt under his nails – he must have decided to do some work, and Childermass still registered the surprise, despite the smoke pouring out of Starecross like steam from a kettle.</p>
<p>Purfois jumped when Childermass caught hold of him. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it’s you.’</p>
<p>‘Do you see that?’ Childermass said, pointing.</p>
<p>Purfois tipped his head, squinting. ‘See what?’</p>
<p>Magic? Or something else, something like the reaching light around Levy, Purfois’s blackberry voice. Something only Childermass could see.</p>
<p>
  <em>Something that was inside the house.</em>
</p>
<p>‘Get everyone away,’ he said.</p>
<p>‘What?’ Purfois put a hand to his eyes to shade them. ‘But there’s nothing-’</p>
<p>‘Now!’</p>
<p>Childermass let go of Purfois, ran into the house. It smelled like soil and metal, and there was something raw and bloody underneath it that made him want to be sick.</p>
<p>‘Get out!’ he shouted. ‘There’s a fire! Get out, fire!’</p>
<p>People trickled out of the various rooms. Honeyfoot ran from the parlour, a cup still in his hand.</p>
<p>‘A fire Mr Childermass?’ he said. ‘I don’t smell-’</p>
<p>‘Trust me,’ Childermass growled. ‘Where’s Vinculus?’</p>
<p>‘He said that he was going wandering for the day.’</p>
<p>Childermass cursed. He watched the stairs for a moment, but no-one came down them. No-one upstairs. Good. He turned, pulling Honeyfoot with him, released him once they were outside and stepped back, craning to see. The smoke around the house was darker, spreading. He twisted, searching the crowd. He needed to find Segundus, and not only because he was the single person at Starecross who might believe what Childermass could see. No matter what had happened that morning, Childermass had to know he was safe, had to know like he had to breathe…</p>
<p>Unfamiliar faces - people gathered in groups, muttering and confused. A boy cried, clutching his father's hand. A woman swore. Childermass moved through them, found Levy sat on a tree-stump with his head in his hands. Charles stood next to him, looking concerned.</p>
<p>‘He came over dizzy,’ Charles said when Childermass approached. ‘Something about the house.’</p>
<p>‘Have you seen Segundus?’</p>
<p>Charles shook his head. Levy groaned. Childermass moved swiftly to the other side of the garden. A handful more people, none of them familiar. No sign of John Segundus anywhere.</p>
<p>Fear took hold of Childermass’s heart and squeezed it in his chest.</p>
<p>He went back the way he’d come, past the crying boy, past Levy, who had slumped further forward on the stump and was surrounded by a gaggle of confused onlookers. Perhaps Segundus was the same, perhaps he had taken ill somewhere in the house…</p>
<p>A flash of white hair. Honeyfoot.</p>
<p>‘Have you seen Mr Segundus?’ Honeyfoot said, before Childermass could speak. ‘I cannot find him anywhere.’</p>
<p>‘He hasn’t gone to the village?’ Childermass said, a last, grasping hope.</p>
<p>‘No – I am sure he would have told me if he intended to do such a thing, and I saw him not half an hour ago…’</p>
<p>Childermass looked at Starecross. If Segundus had not come out, that meant he couldn’t, and that meant he was…</p>
<p>Upstairs. Segundus was upstairs with the not-smoke, the great, crushing darkness leaking around the house and pulling Childermass’s senses apart like breaking glass.</p>
<p>‘Don’t let anyone come in,’ he said, and then he turned and ran, ignoring Honeyfoot’s shouts. The smell of soil and iron grew worse as he reached the stairs, burning his throat and tongue. Steps creaked. Childermass followed the smoke, climbing staircase after staircase until the air was so thick that he had to close his eyes and run against it, feeling his way, stumbling and sick, knocking into unknown objects that clattered and smashed around him. Up and up, shouting Segundus’s name, until he could not go up any further. It was the room at the very top of the house, slant-ceilinged and so musty that it had made him dizzy the first time he had gone into it with Segundus. He pushed against the door and stumbled inside, tripping over an abandoned chair that lay, rotting, by the doorway. Low beams pressed down on him, the angle of the roof sloping like a trap. </p>
<p>Childermass saw it all before he realised that he could see again – that the smoke wasn’t inside the room. Or rather, that it was around it, and he was in the centre, the eye of its storm.</p>
<p>Segundus was in the centre too, stood very straight, and there, next to him, was a figure who, the last time Childermass had seen them, had had light on and about them, and had smelled like woodsmoke and memory. Childermass could see the magic beneath it this time, a billowing night that swept around the house.</p>
<p>Terror burst in the pit of his stomach.</p>
<p>‘Good evening,’ the figure said. ‘It is good of you to join us – I was very disappointed when you would not help me with my books.’</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter Seven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The fairy’s voice rolled around the room like falling stone. Segundus shuddered where he stood. He was facing the figure, his left side to the doorway, and Childermass tried to tell him to run, to get out whilst there was still time, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He tasted honey, and blood. He wanted to reach for his knife, but even if he could have moved, he knew it would do no good. This was not a robbery in a York alleyway. This was something much, much worse.</p><p>The figure inclined their head, or Childermass thought they did – it was not easy to see exactly where their head <em>was</em> – and took hold of Segundus’s right shoulder, heedless of the linen that bound it. Segundus flinched and tried to pull away, but the figure moved him as if he weighed nothing, dragging him round to face the doorway. Segundus looked at Childermass. There was dirt on his cheek, and his face was drained of colour.</p><p>‘Who would have thought,’ the fairy said, ‘that when I came here looking for John Childermass, I would find someone so <em>familiar </em>in his stead.'</p><p>The figure shifted, an impression of dark eyes and dark hair, moonlight by the side of a road. This time, there was no promise of a conversation by a warm fire - only the sense of a weight on a fraying thread, about to snap. </p><p>'And with such a melancholy countenance, too,' the fairy went on, 'hiding away in this little room. In fact, I once knew a lord of Half-Kingdom who would pay a good price for Heartache...'  </p><p>Childermass was hardly listening. A red handkerchief would do no good this time - this was no gentle enchantment, and the figure would be wary of it. Whatever spell of protection he might use, it would need to done quickly. He needed to think, needed time, and something the fairy had said was not right, something…</p><p>He pulled his tongue from the roof of his mouth. ‘How do you know my name?’</p><p>The figure smiled, or gave the imitation of it, and released Segundus’s shoulder. The impression of dark hair and eyes slipped, rain running down glass. ‘<em>Why did Mr Childermass send us</em>?’ Purfois’s blackberry voice seeped into the musty room. ‘<em>There is nothing here. Why should I be wet and cold because Mr Childermass has dreamed up some fairy on the road</em>? <em>Why does he not come himself?</em>’</p><p>‘They did not find you,’ Segundus said, the words rushing out as a gasp that crowded willows behind Childermass's teeth – though the figure had let him go, Segundus seemed unable to move, gaze fixed straight ahead and his left hand clenched into a fist that turned his knuckles white. ‘You needn’t have come here.’</p><p>‘I suppose not,’ the figure said, not looking at Segundus, ‘but that is twice you have bee rude to me, John Childermass. I might have let the first pass – after all, a little disagreement on a dark night might easily be forgotten in the morning.’ The floor creaked as they stepped forward. ‘Only, you did not forget.’</p><p>They said ‘forget’ like a bitter lover, drawing it out long and low and full of dreadful promise.</p><p>‘And your stupid boys were so easy to follow. I do not have to show myself, if I do not wish it. I have spent a long time hiding, since England was closed to us. But now…’</p><p>A sigh filled the room, stopped the breath in Childermass’s lungs for a single, paralysing second. Segundus made a noise in the back of his throat. The figure looked at Childermass, and smirked.</p><p><em>Let him go, </em>Childermass wanted to scream. <em>It’s me you want, let Segundus go</em>. But even as the thought crossed his mind there was a change in the air, smoke turning to fire, and back again, and then there were two John Segundus’s stood next to each other in the cold room, one rigid and shaking with his arm bound in a sling, and the other with two good arms, turning over his hands and admiring them with a smile that tasted like iron on Childermass’s tongue. It was no impression, this time – the image was clear as a painting, except that this new Segundus was sharper and brighter, with fingers a little longer than the real thing.</p><p>And the eyes – the eyes were as deep and dark as peat bogs in the moor, unending and dangerous.</p><p>The figure turned and stepped in front of Segundus. Segundus swayed and took a stumbling pace back, but then the figure reached out and a delicate hand and fastened long fingers around his jaw.</p><p>‘So,’ they said, ‘you <em>are</em> the one.’</p><p>Segundus froze in the figure's grasp. Childermass tried to pick up his feet, to <em>move</em>, but his boots felt like they were growing into the floor. He could no more move than fly. </p><p>The delicate hand twitched, easing Segundus's face towards the roof. One of the long fingers brushed the the fragile skin at the corner of his left eye as he was forced to look up, and Segundus flinched. A strand of his hair came loose from the rest and drifted against his forehead.</p><p>‘Rather plain, aren't you?’ the not-Segundus murmured. ‘But there’s magic there, I suppose. Not powerful, but…tenacious.’ They smiled, stretching Segundus’s mouth into an unnatural grin. ‘Such pretty eyes. I think I will take them out and keep them.’</p><p>‘Stop.’ Childermass knew that it might only make things worse to reveal his hand so early, show how scared he was to see Segundus with his chin tilted to the ceiling – the figure only had to twitch to break his neck – but he could not help it. Fairies were unpredictable, cruel, but they could be reasoned with. If he could not use a spell, and he was certain that attempting to do so would not work, and only make the figure angry, he might make some sort of deal, even a poor one. ‘Let him go. I was the one who caused the offence. I will come with you.’</p><p>'Oh dear.' The figure kept their gaze firmly on Segundus, tightening the grip on his jaw until the nails made white pits in the skin, and Childermass realised with a jolt that he had got the whole thing wrong, that the figure in front of them did not want to bargain - they were hardly more than a bored child catching insects to pull them apart. 'I think he still believes that I will let either of you live.'</p><p>The three of them stood in the low room, Childermass fighting against the floor, Segundus stretched onto his tiptoes with his neck strained into a brittle curve, and the figure looking at Segundus in such a way that the air seemed to part between them.</p><p>'Now, then,’ the not-Segundus whispered, ‘shall we see what would draw you from a road on a winter’s night?’</p><p>The long fingers sprang apart. Segundus rocked back, stumbled, and fell to his knees. The air turned smoky and dense, and then there was only one John Segundus in the room, and Childermass was staring at his own reflection - even to the hairline silver scar on his cheek, the coat collar he had turned up against the wind on the moor and not yet turned down. The resemblance was only broken by those deep, dark eyes that seemed able to see through him to his very insides, down to the twitch and shudder of blood in his veins.</p><p>Segundus, five red pinpricks on his face where the figure had taken hold if it, made a sound that turned the sky in his voice to mist.</p><p>‘Fitting,’ the not-him said, turning gently on the spot to look at Childermass. ‘Though, rather predictable. Did you know, I once lured a fine lady whose heart’s desire was a man who had died before she was even born?’ A snicker, bark splitting from sapwood. ‘A hundred years before that, I met a man whose sole want was a wheel of cheese.’</p><p>Childermass knew he had to speak – if the fairy had come all this way simply to kill them, they would not do so quickly, and that meant that they might have a little space. Segundus was on the floor, but the fairy was looking at Childermass now, and if Childermass could buy Segundus time, if he could keep the figure talking, then Segundus could at least get out, fetch Honeyfoot, fetch Levy…</p><p>Then what? What could any of them do?</p><p>It did not matter. Segundus would get out.</p><p>‘It sounds as if you have an interesting profession,’ Childermass said, though it was ridiculous, and cost him a great deal of energy to do so. He shifted his gaze sideways to Segundus – he did not dare turn his head, but if he could just make Segundus <em>understand</em>...</p><p>The not-him moved so fast that Childermass had no time to step back. They caught hold of Childermass’s shoulders with Childermass’s own hands, closer to the real thing this time, even down to the dirt under his nails, the callouses on his thumbs and the crack of dry skin on his knuckles, made rough by the winter and riding.</p><p>‘Do not test me,’ the not-him snarled, ‘or I will kill him first, and make you watch.’</p><p>Childermass tasted smoke and magic, raw and pounding in time to his heartbeart as the figure looked at him, into him, and Childermass’s voice died in his throat – he wanted to close his eyes, to shut it out, to <em>die</em>, but he couldn’t blink, couldn’t move…  </p><p>‘Oh, what has he done to you?’ the not-him said, crooning the words through his own mouth. ‘Quite a storm you have inside you John Childermass, because of such a little man. So <em>scared</em>. And so confused.’ The not-him leaned forward, so that Childermass should have felt their breath against his face, but there was no breath, only the sweet smell of something on the very edge of spoil. ‘Would you like to know why he did it? Said such agreeable things to you, and then took them all back?’</p><p>‘John,’ Segundus said at last. He was still on his knees, but he met Childermass's eyes. ‘I’m-’</p><p>‘Silence!’ the not-him snarled, and Segundus’s voice cracked and cut off, shivering into the grey sky, which twisted and faded, first to light, then to nothing.</p><p>Segundus’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Willow crowded against Childermass’s teeth, but then the not-him ground a thumb into his collarbone and Childermass had no choice but to look up.</p><p>‘You <em>are </em>different, John Childermass,’ they murmured. ‘The two of you have been playing with magic. It is quite…fascinating.’ The not-him lifted their left hand and made a snatching motion in front of Childermass’s mouth. A brittle willow branch, solid for an instant, then melting into the air. ‘The magic of men is so very unpredictable.’ </p><p>The not-him shimmered, the impression melting like breath shrinking off a cold mirror, and then there was only the figure. The weight lifted from Childermass’s shoulders and he instinctively began to breathe a sigh of relief, only to realise, quite shockingly, that there was no air in his lungs to expel.</p><p>‘I am afraid it is a small sort of magic, though,’ the figure drawled. ‘And it will not bother you for much longer.’</p><p>Smoke rushed into the room. Childermass opened and closed his mouth like a fish on land, choking as smog worked cold into his blood, dazing and dizzying and suffocating.</p><p>‘After I have finished with you two, I think I will find those stupid boys,’ a distant voice said, ‘perhaps they are worth disposing of after all.’</p><p>Childermass’s ears rang. He could not see the figure, or Segundus – he could not see anything. Blood roared in his ears, and his chest was screamingly hollow. He was drowning in smoke, he was…</p><p>The air shuddered, and Childermass gasped. His legs buckled, and his knees stung as they hit the floor. He gulped air. Spots flickered in front of his eyes as the room shifted into colour again. The figure had turned away from him, turned to face Segundus, who was on his feet, close enough to touch. Pieces of the rotting chair were smashed around him, splinters scattered on the floor, and it took Childermass a moment to understand what Segundus had done, what stupid, reckless thing he had done...</p><p>The figure’s face twisted into such disdain that Childermass wanted to vomit. Segundus dropped the remains of the chair and stumbled backwards, lips moving, but no sound came out, and there was nowhere for him to go. Childermass tried to stand, but an invisible hand gripped his shoulder and pressed. His knees stung against the floor as he snarled, twisting and struggling, but he could not get to his feet.</p><p>The figure raised a hand and made a grasping motion in Segundus’s direction. The air trembled silver, and Segundus’s legs buckled. He hit the floor hard, with a thud that went through Childermass like a punch to his gut. </p><p>He waited for Segundus to get up – Segundus was so stubborn, he would not let the figure knock him down – but Segundus did not move. It took Childermass a moment to realise that the crack willow that had been filling his throat was gone.</p><p>‘Now,’ the figure said, ‘where were we?’</p><p>Childermass was not listening. He could not stand, but he threw himself against the magic pressing down on him, and he crawled, muscles screaming, ears ringing. It might have taken him a minute, or a hundred years. It did not matter. Segundus was curled on his left side, eyes closed. The sling on his right arm had come loose, showing the bruised skin, the crease-marks from the linen ties. Apart from that, there was nothing about him to suggest anything amiss, no blood, no marks - even the fingernail-pits on his face had begun to fade. Childermass caught hold of Segundus's right shoulder, shook. He only had to wake him up – it was Childermass who had met the figure at the side of the road, they might still let Segundus go, if Childermass begged, if he…</p><p>Segundus did not move. His lips were grey, his skin cold, and when Childermass touched his wrist the pulse was weak, so weak that he could not even be sure if it was there at all, or if it was only his own, frantic hope. </p><p>‘A shame,’ the fairy said. Their voice was level, as polite as if they were an acquaintance Childermass had met in the street. ‘I should have liked to see his eyes when I killed you. Still…’</p><p>Childermass looked up. The figure raised a hand towards the roof, fist clenched, and Starecross let out a shriek like the earth tearing in two. His ears rang, and then the ceiling cracked like an eggshell, dragging down the beams and the old thatch until the whole roof bowed underneath it.</p><p>Childermass lifted his arm. It was instinctive – he had no time to run, no time to get hold of Segundus and drag him out of the way. So, he threw his right hand up, as if it would save them, and, impossibly, it did. The beam that had worked loose froze in its descent. Didn’t move, didn’t fall, simply…stopped.</p><p>There was a long quiet. The house groaned and shifted around them. Air stung in Childermass’s lungs as he knelt, holding up the roof.</p><p>The figure laughed, a piercing, ugly sound. A bored child entertained at last by its wounded insects.</p><p>‘Well,’ they said delightedly, ‘you are a surprise.’ </p><p>Childermass tried to get to his feet, but when he did the beam groaned and slipped. He could feel the strain of it already, draining what strength he had left.</p><p>‘Oh, do keep trying,’ the figure said, ‘it is so entertaining to watch. But I doubt that you can hold it for very long.’</p><p>The ceiling groaned. The beam shifted, an inch, then another. Pieces of debris worked loose and pattered onto Childermass's outstretched hand. Dust hovered uncertainly in the air. A splinter fell, tore a hot graze by his ear, and he inhaled against the sting of it, ground his left fist into the floor. He tried to speak – if he could just wake Segundus and tell him to run, he could hold the roof for long enough for Segundus to get away… But he had no strength left, and Segundus did not move. Despair welled through him – he had seen the motion the fairy had made, felt it deep in his veins like a gunshot, and Segundus was not moving…</p><p>The roof sighed. Magic boiled, waves against a cliff, but an ocean drying out, and it pulled on Childermass, demanding and dizzying. The figure watched him, unmoving, and Childermass had nothing left, too soon. He noticed, as if looking through a glass of water at another world, that Segundus’s collar was askew. He wanted to reach out and fix it, as if it might make a difference, as if, somehow, he could tell Segundus that he did not mind what had happened that morning, if only Segundus would wake up. </p><p>His lips were numb. The beam slipped, slipped again. Childermass flinched, and then, because he knew that there was nothing more that he could do to stop it falling, he pitched forward to cover Segundus in the hopeless expectation that he might protect him. Wood cracked above them as he braced himself, shoulders shaking, and then…</p><p>Nothing.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter Eight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Childermass coughed. Something hot trickled down his cheek. Blood. Something had cut his ear, but could not remember what. Exhaustion pulled deep in his bones, and his back hurt. He was kneeling, he realised. Floorboards, solid under his left palm. Dust in his hair, coating his tongue and scratching the back of his throat. Walls, dim and dark, twisted with ivy that grew down the stones and spilled across the floor like rivers. Even so, he recognised the place – this was the room at the top of Starecross. It did not smell musty now. There was an old magic to it that fell around him like fine cloth-of-gold, rustling and secret.</p>
<p>He started, looked up at the roof. The beam was in place, as if had never had been broken. Like everything else, it was overgrown with ivy. Childermass blinked. That was impossible. He had not been able to hold it, he had not been strong enough. He blinked again, frowned. When had it grown so dark? Had it not been afternoon, only a moment ago?</p>
<p>He had forgotten something, something important…</p>
<p>His left knuckles pressed hard against the gritty floorboards, but his right hand rested on something softer – a still shape beneath him in the darkness.</p>
<p>‘John.’ His voice cracked – it was as if he had not used it for a hundred years. ‘John!’</p>
<p>There was no reply, apart from the murmur of the stones.</p>
<p>The strain of holding the falling beam had left Childermass breathless, but he pried his left hand from the ivied floor and found Segundus’s neck. Segundus’s skin was cold, and Childermass could taste the iron of the fairy’s magic around him, but there was a pulse – no more than a whisper in the dark room, but there. Childermass’s breath echoed as he put his hand to Segundus’s shoulder, squeezed.</p>
<p>'John,' he said, 'can you hear me?'</p>
<p>Segundus did not reply, did not stir. Not when Childermass shook him, called his name, not even when he felt for the soft flesh where Segundus’s thumb met his palm pinched it hard enough to draw blood.</p>
<p>‘Come on,’ he growled, his voice shockingly loud in the quiet room. Segundus’s fingers rested, limp and icy, against his own. ‘Wake up.’</p>
<p>Nothing. Childermass released Segundus’s hand, rocked back on his heels and tried to think. He could taste the magic that had been done – it was an old, raw kind, complex and ugly – and he knew in his bones that <em>Restoration and Rectification</em> would be no good to them here. The fairy's spell had left no marks, nothing to heal back together. </p>
<p>Anger rippled hot through him. Segundus had needed his help, and Childermass had not even been able to move, let alone do magic amongst the iron and smoke. If he had been faster, cleverer, if he had found the right spell of protection, they would not be here.</p>
<p>He took a harsh breath, pushed the anger down. It would not help him. They were alone now, and even if this Starecross, full of ivy and fresh magic was the fairy’s doing – and Childermass could not think who else’s it might be, unless they were both already dead, and he did not <em>feel </em>dead – the fairy was not here. They had time.</p>
<p>He muttered a frantic handful of words, half-remembered, snatches from Norrell’s books, from his own studies. His head span, and his tongue was thick and clumsy, but the magic ebbed around the room, settled. Childermass leaned over Segundus, shook him again. Segundus’s head moved loosely against the floor. He did not wake. His skin was colder than before, an inhuman chill that brought the rasp of breaking stone to Childermass’s ears.</p>
<p>Childermass cursed, but he set his shoulders. He drew more words from his memory. He turned out his pockets, found the red handkerchief and bound it with a spell of protection, attempted to bind this in turn to Segundus. It was a clumsy attempt at magic, and it failed. When Childermass found Segundus’s pulse again it was as fragile as paper, and the taste of iron was stronger.</p>
<p>He tried a third spell, and a fourth, both half-invented and half-remembered. The magic would not stick – it simply slid off Segundus like he was made of ice. The fairy’s spell was too old, too complex – Childermass could not counter it. </p>
<p>A sheen of frost began to form on Segundus’s lips. When Childermass swiped it away, it simply re-formed, tiny white crystals like dew on grass.</p>
<p>‘Come on,’ he muttered. He took off his coat and wrapped it around Segundus, then lifted him into his lap, trying to seep a little heat into him. He put his hands to Segundus’s face to try and warm his cheeks. The cold made his fingers ache down to the bone. 'Can you hear me?'</p>
<p>The ivy creaked. Blood dripped from the graze behind Childermass's ear, pattered onto Segundus’s forehead. It was shockingly dark against his skin. Segundus was almost translucent, as if he was fading away. Which, of course, he was. Childermass could not stop the spell – he did not know where to begin, and Segundus was too cold already.</p>
<p>‘Please,’ he murmured. He took Segundus’s left hand and pressed it between both of his own, though it hurt to touch him. Childermass knew that he should not be so close, that the cold would creep over him too if he let it, freeze him up from the inside like a river of ice. His thoughts were turning blank and still, like a piece of paper someone had forgotten to write on. Segundus could not die. It should not be allowed - it was less than a day since Segundus had refused to meet his eye, asked Childermass to let him go. Childermass had done so then, but he would not now, could not...</p>
<p>The spell drew iron and honey closer around them, and Segundus’s fingers grew punishingly cold in his own. Death snapped like frost in the air. Childermass continued to murmur under his breath, knowing that he could do no good, but hoping anyway, even as the heat began to draw out of him, making his hands and feet sting. Even when something moved in the twilight, he kept his head bowed over Segundus. Let the fairy come - he no longer cared.</p>
<p>He waited. The ivy seemed to whisper, until Childermass thought he could hear the water moving through its stems, speaking secrets in a language he did not understand. It was a gentle sound, clear and singing in the dim light. Strange. He would not have thought the fairy could command things to sing in such a sweet way.</p>
<p>Too curious to help it, he looked up, searching the room for that impossible, shifting figure, but there was nothing. Cloth-of-gold rippled. His skin itched.  </p>
<p>‘Come on,’ he growled, breaking the silence like glass, ‘show yourself, if you are here!’</p>
<p>His voice rang through the empty house. Perhaps he had only imagined the movement, the song. Perhaps they were truly alone.</p>
<p>He was not sure that such a thought was a relief.</p>
<p>He had almost given up looking when a light caught his eye – a blue, shifting brightness that gathered at the corners of the room and drew his eyes achingly towards it.</p>
<p>‘Hello?’ His voice cracked. ‘Who’s there?’</p>
<p>The light flickered, settled. It was not what he had expected – it was a lady, with hair like starlight and a face as captivating as a spring dawn, neither young nor old, one moment withered, the next fresh. Her gown was a midnight sky, tumbling and flowing to the floor, yet she did not touch the ground.</p>
<p>Childermass knew instantly who she was, though he had never even seen a picture of her. This house had been hers, long before Mrs Lennox, long before any of them. The air around her was unending and dark and beautiful, and magic rolled from her in waves that scraped the very inside of Childermass’s skull.</p>
<p>The cloth-of-gold, the tendrils of ivy. The beam, still in place above them.</p>
<p>Childermass kept Segundus’s hand in his own, and met Maria Absalom’s stare.   </p>
<p>‘Please.’ His voice was rough and ugly in the beautiful light. ‘Help him.’</p>
<p>He would never have dared to ask for himself – not of this lady, with her starlight hair, who looked at him like he was a mirror, nothing but a pale imitation of a life. But for Segundus, he would ask.</p>
<p>She tilted her gaze. Childermass braced himself for chastisement, but there was no sound. The silence was as loud as a ship breaking on a rock. Maria Absalom drifted towards him, and the stones murmured as she moved, ivy twisting and singing, until she was so close that Childermass could see nothing but the light and dark of her, until he tasted violets and his very thoughts slowed to a crawl. It drew his memory to something that had happened a long time ago, by the tree where he had found Vinculus – the wind had spoken in a such a way that Childermass still dreamed of it, though never remembered why it had done so, no matter how hard he tried.</p>
<p>A hand touched his forehead. Whose hand? He was not sure. It was a cool touch, a summer turning to autumn. He tasted silver, sudden and painful as if someone had hit him in the teeth, a bell ringing where no-one else could hear it, a raven's wings beating in a black sky. The world split around him, then instantly melted back together, easing into soft grey clouds that ebbed around the room and then faded gently away.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>A drop of blood slid down Childermass’s cheek, and he came awake – had he been sleeping? – with a shudder. The house creaked. Floorboards. Ivy. Starecross. Not the Starecross he knew, but simultaneously older and younger, a living maze of ivy, broken things and dark corners. Maria Absalom’s house. But Maria Absalom had gone, winked into the shadows. If it had not been for the ringing in his ears, Childermass might not have believed that she had been there at all.</p>
<p>He blinked, looked down. Segundus’s hand rested in his own, motionless and…</p>
<p>Warm.</p>
<p>He dropped Segundus’s hand and leaned over him, shaking him. ‘Come on,’ he murmured. ‘Come on…’</p>
<p>Segundus let out a sharp, gasping breath and opened his eyes. Childermass found his hand again, squeezed it.</p>
<p>‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘wake up.’</p>
<p>Segundus’s eyes slid shut again without focusing. Childermass wrapped his arms tight around Segundus’s shoulders and rubbed them, trying to beat some of the heat back into him. Segundus blinked again. His eyes were glassy, like he was dreaming, but they found Childermass, stayed open. His lips were no longer icy. The rumpled sling was falling off his shoulder underneath Childermass's coat, which was far too big for him, and Childermass felt a giddy hysteria that made him want to laugh – the smell of iron and honey had trickled away, and he could breathe freely at last.</p>
<p>Segundus frowned. For a moment, he seemed about to speak, but then his eyes widened and he rolled off Childermass’s lap and vomited onto the floorboards. Childermass started, then quickly gathered himself, lifting onto his knees and putting a hand to Segundus’s shoulder.</p>
<p>‘It’s alright,’ he murmured, rubbing a gentle circle on Segundus’s back, ‘you are not alone.’</p>
<p>Segundus coughed. His shoulders shook, but at last he turned and looked at Childermass. Childermass wanted to reach out and wrap his arms around him, put a hand to his chest and feel the beat of his heart under his ribs, but Segundus had a wild, scared looked about him, and he did not. Instead, he reached for the red handkerchief, abandoned amongst the ivy. He wiped Segundus’s mouth, then turned the fabric over and gently rubbed at the blood that had dripped from his ear onto Segundus’s forehead. </p>
<p>'There,' he murmured as the last of the blood came away, 'are you hurt?'</p>
<p>Segundus swallowed. His hair was in disarray, and he was shivering violently in Childermass's coat, but his skin was no longer waxy. He shook his head. 'I do not think so.'</p>
<p>Childermass blinked. At first he thought that Segundus had not spoken at all - that the fairy had stolen his voice away, back in their own Starecross - but that was not right. He had heard Segundus's voice, quiet in the dark room. But he had not seen it. </p>
<p>The grey sky was gone.</p>
<p>Childermass stared, until Segundus leaned forward and touched his shoulder.</p>
<p>‘John, are you ill?’</p>
<p>Numbly, he shook his head. </p>
<p>'Are you certain?' Segundus put a hand on his knee. 'You seemed very far away.'</p>
<p>Childermass cleared his throat. 'I am...a little shaken. That is all.'</p>
<p>Segundus nodded. Childermass’s coat made him look even smaller than usual, but he gestured to the handkerchief in Childermass's hand, and his lips twitched. 'At least I do not doubt now that you are yourself. I do not think the fairy would have been so willing to help.’</p>
<p>Childermass looked down, then, because Segundus had his coat, stuffed the handkerchief in his boot. His relief was beginning to ebb into exhaustion, and he felt sick as he came to the sharp realisation that there was no smell of violet in the air, no cloth-of-gold, no clouds – only the ripple of magic as he had always felt it.</p>
<p>‘This place seems familiar,’ Segundus murmured, lifting his head to the ceiling. ‘Have I been here before?’</p>
<p>‘It is Maria Absalom’s Starecross.’ Childermass forced himself to gather in his straying thoughts. ‘She helped you.’</p>
<p><em>And took something in return, </em>he thought, but he did not say it. </p>
<p>‘She…I remember something…cold. Horribly cold.’ Segundus shuddered. ‘How did you complete the spell?’</p>
<p>‘What spell?’</p>
<p>‘My spell. Before.’</p>
<p>Childermass remembered Segundus’s lips moving silently, a moment before the fairy had done their worst. ‘You summoned Maria Absalom?’</p>
<p>Segundus frowned. ‘No. If anything, I tried to summon us away. I meant to take us far from Starecross, but I could not sound the words, and I did not have time. I tried to make some, but it was not enough.’</p>
<p>Childermass put a hand over his mouth, and he was not sure if it was to stifle laughter or a sob. ‘You hit a fairy with a chair.’</p>
<p>‘I could not think of anything else.' Segundus looked down. 'I do not remember what happened, but I know that I did not manage to complete the spell. If you did not either, then it should not have worked. We should not be here.’</p>
<p>Childermass looked down at the ivy growing under their knees, and shivered. ‘I think Maria Absalom may have had some hand in the thing. Why else would the spell have brought us here?’</p>
<p>‘But...’ Segundus shook his head. ‘It is one thing for Miss Absalom to visit upon being summoned, but this…’</p>
<p>Childermass made a noise at the back of his throat. He wanted to puzzle it through – he was not in the habit of not knowing things, and he felt suddenly naked without the tangle of sensations that had followed him since Stonegate – but he was not sure they had the time.    </p>
<p>‘Come,’ he said, ‘we must find our way back.’</p>
<p>‘How?’ Segundus gathered Childermass’s coat more closely around him. The shivering was less, but he still looked cold. ‘If it was Miss Absalom who brought us here, I am not sure how we can return without her.'</p>
<p>‘Maybe…’ Childermass closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. ‘Strange made a path for his wife when he brought her out of Faerie. He did not take her there, but he brought her back.’</p>
<p>‘Mrs Strange said that he bound a mirror in Venice,’ Segundus said, looking around them. ‘I have heard that Maria Absalom had mirrors. We may find one in the house.’</p>
<p>Childermass shook his head. ‘I do not think we should stray. Besides, if the path has not been set already it will be difficult to bind two different mirrors.’</p>
<p>‘Then what?’</p>
<p>‘We must find something else to make a path.’ Childermass drummed his fingers against the floor. ‘We are at an advantage to Mr Strange – we are not in Faerie. We are at Starecross already, so we must bind two things that are the same in Maria Absalom's, and our own.’</p>
<p>‘But if we return to our Starecross...’ Segundus would not meet his eye. ‘Does that not mean that <em>they</em> will still be there?’</p>
<p>Childermass had not forgotten, exactly, what had happened – <em>shall we see what would draw you from a road on a winter’s night </em>– but he had not allowed himself to think of it. Now, though, it flooded back. Segundus was right. If they returned home, they would find trouble again. He had come within a hair of losing Segundus only a few minutes ago, and the thought made him want to be sick. </p>
<p>Yet, they could not stay here. They were guests, if that, and he was not sure how long they would be welcome. </p>
<p>‘Perhaps-’ he began, but before he could finish the air shifted around them, chilling and thickening. Childermass’s skin tingled along his spine. The sensation faded quickly, but when he looked up, what little colour that had returned to Segundus's face had left it. </p>
<p>‘They’ve found us,’ Segundus whispered.</p>
<p>Childermass kept silent. He could not deny it, and he did not know what to do. If they went back, they would be in danger, but if they stayed here and were found...</p>
<p>'John.' Segundus touched his arm. 'You are right - we must go back. And if we are to fight, I would rather do so in our Starecross.' He smiled - just a half-smile, scared, but bright in the dim room. 'This time, way may have the advantage of surprise.' </p>
<p>Still, Childermass hesitated. He wanted to cling to this quiet place, with Segundus's smile and his warm hand on his arm, even though he knew they could not stay.</p>
<p>He took a deep breath, nodded. ‘You must think of the spell that you used. We may bind the stones to make a path, or the ivy - that is very old, is it not?’</p>
<p>Something trickled down his chin, and he brought a hand up instinctively to swipe it away. His fingers came away red, and he blinked. He had forgotten that he was bleeding. He had been too concerned with other matters.</p>
<p>‘You said that you were not hurt,’ Segundus said, lifting up on his knees with a disapproving frown. It made Childermass warm to see his concern, even without the grey sky, even though the scrape was nothing compared to what would come if they did not get out of the place they were in, and quickly.</p>
<p>‘It is only a scratch,’ he said. He pulled down his sleeve, intending to bring it up to wipe the blood on his neck, and a thought struck him like a spark.</p>
<p>Segundus’s eyes went to his hand. ‘No.’</p>
<p>‘I received this cut in our Starecross.' Childermass tested the blood against his thumb. Still warm. 'If I have bled there, and the blood is fresh here, we might use the binding to connect the two, and make a path.’</p>
<p>‘That is a dangerous kind of magic. You cannot know a spell for it.’</p>
<p>‘Not in full,’ Childermass admitted – Norrell had had books of darker magic, despite his disapproval of it, but they had always been more difficult to access than the other areas of the library. ‘I know a little. The rest…’ His thoughts were tumbling over each other, but his head was clearer than it had been in days. He felt magic singing through the room, singing through him. It could be done, he was sure. ‘Do you know pathfinding?’</p>
<p>‘Some, but-’</p>
<p>‘This spell will require both of us, if we are both to leave.’ He looked at Segundus closely. ‘You brought us here, and I believe that you can help bring us back.’</p>
<p>The air turned cold around them again. Childermass flinched. They did not have much time.</p>
<p>Segundus bit his lip, but then he nodded. Childermass reached for the cut behind his ear. The blood was still fresh - it had bled freely, as head wounds were wont to do. That was good. The spell would be harder, perhaps impossible, once it dried.</p>
<p>‘Quickly,’ he said, nodding to the doorway. ‘We must not do the spell here. It is very important that when we make the path, we do not come out in the exact place we left.’</p>
<p>Segundus frowned. ‘Why is that?’</p>
<p>‘Because the roof was falling down, and I would rather not have us arrive beneath it.’</p>
<p>‘The roof? I do not remember…’ Segundus trailed off, shook his head. ‘Later. But if we use blood to make a path, I do not see how we could come out in a different place to that which it fell.’</p>
<p>‘We are magicians,’ Childermass said, ‘and we need only be a few feet away. The spell must only go slightly wrong for something such as that to happen.’</p>
<p>‘I do not like it.’ Segundus pulled at the hem of Childermass’s coat. ‘This magic will be hard enough to get right, without trying to get parts of it wrong. What if we come out in a place that has changed, where there is no floor? Or in a wall, or…’</p>
<p>‘We must think of one place. Not too far away – I do not think we should test the magic more than we must.’ Childermass looked around the room. There was a doorway, different to the one that he had walked through in his own Starecross only that afternoon, but in the same place. When the beam had come down, it had not brought the doorway with it. He was certain of that. ‘There.’</p>
<p>Slowly, he got to his feet. Ivy creaked under his boots, and his joints creaked with it. Segundus put his hand to the floor and pushed, but his knees trembled and Childermass had to catch hold of his elbow to help him stand. Even as he did, the air grew closer around them.</p>
<p>‘Come,’ he said, moving his grip from Segundus’s elbow to his hand. Blood slipped between their palms. ‘We must hurry. And we must be ready, once the spell is complete.’</p>
<p>Segundus was pale, but his jaw was set. He nodded.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry that this chapter is a little late - I was poorly earlier in the week, and this one took longer than I was expecting. I also apologise once again for mushing book and TV-show canon together, but I like Maria Absalom, and the boys needed a little help.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter Nine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The house creaked and shifted as they stood opposite each other in the doorway, hands pressed together - Segundus’s at the centre, because they were smaller and he could not grip with his right, and Childermass’s around his, a messy knot of fingers and knuckles. Segundus’s hands were still cold, and he shivered in Childermass's coat. He had taken off his sling, and the wooden splint was rough against Childermass’s wrist. Childermass kept their grip low so that Segundus would not have to stretch his right arm too far, but he could see that it pained him by the tight press of Segundus’s lips, the shadows under his eyes.</p><p>The blood on their hands seemed black in the dim light. Childermass hoped that it would be enough. The magic must be done quickly – the sense of something approaching was only growing stronger, more dangerous.</p><p>The spell was complex, even in its improvisation. Childermass took the lead in it, threading and weaving the magic that he thought would work best, and drew Segundus slowly behind him, allowing him to tweak and adjust, adapting the spell as he saw fit. Gently, they formed a path between the blood on their hands, and the blood in their own Starecross, reaching out to the house, to those stones and trees that had stood for hundreds of years, and asking for their permission to pass between the two spaces. The process was difficult and draining, a delicate mixture of instinct and knowledge. Sweat trickled down Childermass’s neck.</p><p>Segundus’s hands shifted under his palms. Neither of them could break off from the spell, but when Childermass looked up, Segundus’s eyes met his, gaze steady.</p><p><em>‘We must not let go, once we have begun,’</em> Segundus said before they had started, <em>‘whatever happens.’</em></p><p>Childermass tightened his grip around Segundus’s hands. He knew as well as Segundus that if they were to make a path together, then they must follow it together, or become lost entirely.</p><p>He was not sure how long they stood in the doorway - it seemed a hundred years - before the air shifted. At first, Childermass thought that it was only the spell, but then there was a ripple of cold through the room and his windpipe seemed to fold together, severing the passage of air to his lungs. He faltered. The spell, fragile as freshly-blown glass, wavered, until Segundus nudged him. The squeeze on Childermass's throat relaxed, and he caught the thread of the spell again. Even so, he allowed his gaze to wander, just for a moment, looking towards the low room. It was empty, but there was a definite change, cold and uncertain.</p><p>Childermass’s skin prickled. He spoke the spell faster, more so than was wise, but Segundus must have felt the change as well because he joined him without question. They tripped and tumbled over the words, becoming more and more breathless - the spell was too intricate, too complex, they were running out of time…</p><p>The air snapped. Childermass felt it like a knife easing under his skin, and he tightened his grip on Segundus. Segundus winced, but kept speaking, even as the room twisted and Childermass knew what was coming, what was almost here…</p><p>Childermass did not see them arrive – one moment the room was empty, and the next, the figure was there. The stones gleamed in the reflection of the fairy's own, moonish light, the same light Childermass had seen on the road towards York.</p><p>‘Well,’ they said, looking at the ivy-snarled ceiling. ‘I was not expecting that.’ </p><p>Childermass continued to speak. The spell was still fledgling. They needed more time, just a little longer.</p><p>The figure turned towards them. Their gaze went through Childermass like a scalpel investigating his nerves - he could not see the smoke this time, but he could feel it clogging his lungs. The fairy’s eyes were as deep and endless as they had been before.</p><p>‘How unusual,’ they said, looking at Segundus. ‘I am not used to seeing my will so easily undone. How on earth did you manage it?’</p><p>Segundus’s grip slackened in his own, and Childermass fought to keep hold, despite his wavering concentration, despite the fact it was getting more and more difficult to breathe.</p><p>The air sighed. Childermass lifted his head - he thought he heard the whisper of a lady’s voice in the house, far off, and yet...not. </p><p>He inhaled sharply, found the spell again. This was not his Starecross, or Segundus’s. This Starecross belonged to someone else, and Childermass did not think that they would be welcome much longer.</p><p>‘Stop your foolish muttering,’ the fairy said, ‘it will not do you any good.’</p><p>Childermass kept speaking, clenching his fingers until he felt the bones in Segundus’s hands shift under his grip. A blue light began to gather at the edges of the room. </p><p>‘I said,’ the figure roared, ‘silence!’</p><p>Childermass’s voice died like a snuffed candle in his throat. Segundus stumbled, and Childermass had to twist to keep their hands together. The figure stepped forward, but the room was full of blue light now, and Childermass knew that Segundus could see it too, because it reflected on his eyes and made his pupils shrink. The path stretched like an invisible thread between them, trembling, already beginning to unravel, but Segundus’s hands were still tight around his. Childermass squeezed his eyes shut against the light, the figure’s ringing voice, and, because he could not speak, he <em>thought</em> of Starecross. Their Starecross - the winter afternoon, the grey cloud that he had ridden under, the cracked beam and the settling dust, the doorframe above them, the raven carvings and the dusty <em>tok-tok-tok </em>of the clock in the hallway. Segundus’s thumb soft against his cheek by the kitchen fire, and Segundus’s hands in his own, drawing the last strands of their path together.</p><p>A scream rang out. It was not a human scream, or an animal one, but something older and muddier, a river sinking into the earth. The blue light grew so bright that Childermass could see it behind his closed eyes, until he thought it would split him open, but then the world tilted, and magic surged around them. Childermass staggered. The blue light went black, and then he was drowning in a crush of time and space that folded together and out again, a tapestry unspooling across the very globe of the earth. Too many strands to count - he was lost amongst them, calling out into the darkness and making no sound, until he realised that there was a single thread already drawing him towards it, pulling him at such a speed that his bones creaked. Something moved between his clasped palms, slipping, and he could not remember what he was holding, only that he must not let it go. He held on grimly, though he could hardly bear the press of magic on him, threatening to tear him apart…</p><p>The thread snapped. Childermass gasped as spots swam in front of his eyes. Light flooded back, a weak afternoon sun. He stumbled, joints waxy and useless, so exhausted that he couldn’t do anything but fall. Only, there was something partly holding him up, partly being held in turn, something solid and warm. Segundus’s hands. Childermass blinked. Segundus looked back at him. In the settling magic, the daylight, everything was dazzlingly clear – Childermass could still see a trace of the blood he had wiped from Segundus’s brow, a pink streak above his left eye, the specks of dust and dirt on his face, his rumpled collar.</p><p>A great tearing shriek, a splintering of wood. Childermass had just enough time to look up, see the sturdy doorframe above them and hope that it would be enough before the beam gave way. Thatch and debris tumbled into the room. The sound screamed into the corridor as rubble scattered and bounced across the floor. Dust blew into Childermass’s eyes, turned Segundus’s hair white. The doorway groaned, but held. </p><p>Daylight shone through the hole in the thatch. The world creaked, then settled. Childermass’s lungs ached. He let out a breath that he had not realised he had been holding, then sagged against the doorframe, pulling Segundus down with him, because Segundus’s hands were still in his own and Childermass could not seem to let go, could not pry his curled fingers open.</p><p>They hit the floor with a thud that made Childermass’s bones ache, backs against the doorframe, a tangle of legs and hands between. Segundus groaned.</p><p>‘Are you hurt?’ Childermass said, forgetting for a moment that his voice had been stolen, and coming to the pleasant realisation that it seemed to have returned to him.</p><p>Segundus shook his head, though he was breathing heavily and sweat shone on his brow. ‘You?’</p><p>‘No.’</p><p>‘The fairy,’ Segundus said, ‘what-’</p><p>‘I do not think they will come,’ Childermass said, and he knew that Segundus had heard that scream too, because he only nodded. </p><p>Childermass was not sure how long they stayed in the doorframe – it might have been a minute, or hours – but, at last, a voice drifted up the stairs. It called Segundus’s name, then his own. Childermass did not reply. He did not have the strength to shout. His joints were still waxy, and his heartbeat felt too slow in his chest.</p><p>‘John,’ Segundus said. ‘You must let go.’</p><p>Childermass hesitated. He had been holding on so tightly, so desperately, and he did not want to let go. Too much had happened, and there was still the nagging of all the things they had left unsaid, buzzing between them in the narrow space.</p><p>‘John.’ Segundus found his gaze, held it. His dark eyes were steady, reassuring. ‘I will not leave you, I promise.’</p><p>Childermass swallowed, and began to pry his hands apart. His fingers hurt as the feeling rushed back to them. Segundus twisted in his grasp. Dry blood cracked, drifted powdery onto their wrists and sleeves, until at last Childermass’s fingers seemed to understand what he wanted of them, and sprang apart. Segundus dropped his hands with a gasp, resting the right against his knee. The splint was lopsided, and there were white grazes where Childermass’s nails had dug into his skin.</p><p>‘Sorry,’ Childermass managed, his voice thick in his throat. ‘I’m-’</p><p>‘It doesn’t matter.’ Segundus let out a long breath. ‘It will-’</p><p>A clatter of feet on the stairs. Charles and Purfois, and behind them, breathing very hard and leaning on his stick, Honeyfoot.</p><p>‘Mr Segundus!’ Honeyfoot stumbled towards them. Childermass looked for the butter-yellow of his voice, and was not surprised to find it gone. He had understood that part already, though it seemed very far away. ‘Mr Childermass, are you hurt?’ Honeyfoot knelt in front of them, grasping his stick to keep himself upright, put the other hand on Segundus’s shoulder. ‘What has happened? We saw the roof…’</p><p>Purfois stood over them, looking beyond the doorway and into the other room. ‘What a frightful mess.’</p><p>Childermass was glad that there were no blackberries. He did not think he could have stomached them, on top of everything else.</p><p>Honeyfoot waved a hand. ‘The mess hardly matters. Help Mr Childermass up. We must get them out of here quickly – who knows if the whole roof will give way?’</p><p>Someone – Charles – put their hands under Childermass’s arms, lifted. The world span as he was dragged to his feet and half-carried, half-walked down the stairs. He was vaguely aware of Segundus leaning on Purfois, and Honeyfoot behind them, saying that they were safe now, that all would be well. His temples throbbed. </p><p>They reached the hall, boots loud on the stone flags, and then there was a dizzying whirl of chattering voices and rustling clothing in the gardens, where the afternoon light was beginning to fade. A biting wind that drove through Childermass and made him gasp. He lost sight of Segundus in the rush, and he wanted to call out – Segundus had promised that he would not leave him – but his throat was paper-dry, and he could not make himself heard.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There was a great deal of confusion for a long while. People rushed around the grounds, chattering and shouting, staring up at the place where the roof had come down. Childermass was deposited heavily on a stone at the edge of the garden. Levy hovered nervously at his side as Charles ran to fetch the doctor from the village.</p><p>Childermass looked for Segundus in the chaos, caught sight of him a few feet away, sitting with his back against the wall that ran around Starecross. Purfois and Honeyfoot stood over him, speaking. Childermass wanted to get up and go to him, but even if he had been able to stand – and he did not think he could, not yet – he knew that he must wait. The cold wind had brought him a little to his senses, and there were too many staring people.</p><p>Someone put a coat – not his own – around his shoulders. It was too small, and the wind crept through it and made him shiver. His head pounded. Dry blood itched on his palms, under his nails. He felt like a rag that someone had picked up and squeezed, and his dry tongue stuck amongst his teeth, so that he could not speak to ask for water.</p><p>The doctor arrived quickly. He examined Segundus first - Childermass listened, trying to hear what was said, but there was too much noise - then came to Childermass. He looked at Childermass’s hands, asked him to lift up his arms. He checked the cut behind his ear, tutted, and, after sponging away the blood, made two quick stitches in the skin. Childermass should have felt the sting of it, but he was numb, and it was only a dull ache, quickly gone.</p><p>‘He will recover,’ the doctor said, turning to Honeyfoot, who had puffed over with him. ‘It looks like a case of exhaustion more than anything else. Keep him warm and give him something to drink. You should get both of them inside and by a fire as soon as you can.’</p><p>‘Someone has been fetched to check the house,’ Honeyfoot said. ‘Once we are certain that it is safe, we will go inside.’</p><p>The doctor nodded, moved out of sight. Someone brought Childermass water, fresh and cold from the stream. It cleared the dust in his mouth, but made his stomach hurt. He felt sick. Someone spoke – they might have asked him what had happened – but Childermass did not reply. Trees rustled in the cold wind, and he lost himself in the movement of their bare winter branches, lost track of time, half-dreaming of ivy and starlight, until he woke with a gasp, certain that he had felt the press of Segundus’s hands in his own. But his hands were empty, and when he looked up, Segundus was still with Honeyfoot. Childermass was certain that it had not been deliberate - everything had been such a rush - but he wished that they had not put Segundus so far from him.</p><p>‘It is alright, Mr Childermass.’ Levy touched his shoulder. ‘People are inside now, looking at the roof. The rest of them have gone home.’</p><p>Childermass swallowed. The grounds were indeed quieter. The sun was setting, an orange streak in the grey sky, and the air was cold.</p><p>'Mr Childermass...' Levy took a breath. ‘Mr Segundus said that there was a fairy.'</p><p>‘Yes.’</p><p>‘But we are not in danger?’</p><p>‘It is gone.’ If he’d had to strength to turn his head, Childermass would have looked at the house, just to make sure, but it was a foolish instinct – he had heard the scream. 'It will not return.'</p><p>'I thought that it must have gone,' Levy murmured. 'I felt it arrive, but I do not feel it now.'</p><p>'You are sensitive to magic.'</p><p>It wasn't a question, but Levy nodded. 'I always have been, though I became more so after Mr Strange vanished. I manage, though. Sometimes, it is even useful.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Was it the same fairy that we…’</p><p>‘Yes.’</p><p>Levy went red. ‘I am sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I should have stayed longer, I should not have let Mr Purfois...well.'</p><p><em>Stupid boys</em>. But Childermass was too tired to be angry. He began to tell Levy to drop the subject, but it turned into a cough.</p><p>‘I will fetch some more water,’ Levy said quickly, and was on his feet before Childermass could reply. Childermass watched him go. Even knowing what had happened, he could not help but look to see if the pale green light that had been about Levy when he had come to Starecross would return, but there was no sign of it.</p><p>It was strange, to be alone. There had been so many people around him, so much bustle and confusion. The stone under his legs was sharp and uncomfortable, and he was cold. He wanted to sleep for a year.</p><p>He looked over at Segundus. He sitting against the wall with his eyes half-closed, but he did not look asleep. Honeyfoot stood near to him, but Purfois had gone. Childermass swallowed. If he could just manage to lever himself off the stone, then he would be halfway to standing, and then...</p><p>Gently, he pressed his hands into the ground, tested his weight against the grass. His knees trembled. </p><p>'I'd sit back down if I were you,' a voice said at his elbow, 'I'm not catching you if you fall.'</p><p>Childermass groaned, let himself drop back onto the stone. The grass rustled as Vinculus came to stand in front of him, hands in his pockets, though Childermass did not see the point of the gesture - the pockets were so full of holes that they could not possibly provide any protection from the cold.</p><p>He let his eye go to Vinculus’s skin, to the places where the blue letters showed. They were not moving. </p><p>'I thought that you came to make this place tidier?' Vinculus said, looking around with a gesture that reminded Childermass of an actor on a stage. 'It appears to be even more of a mess than it was when you arrived.’</p><p>Childermass sighed. ‘You have a habit of vanishing.’</p><p>‘You were the one who vanished.’ Vinculus shrugged, digging his hands deeper into his pockets. ‘When we missed you this morning, I thought something might have happened to you.’</p><p>‘I went riding,' Childermass said, making sure to keep his voice level. ‘You did not need to go looking.’</p><p>‘I thought that you might be getting into trouble on the moor. Though, it turns out you were here all along, and brought the trouble with you.'</p><p>‘Why should you think that I was in trouble on the moor?’</p><p>Vinculus grunted. ‘An instinct.’</p><p>Childermass frowned. He had considered, though it seemed a lifetime ago, going to York alone to find the fairy. He would not have found it, of course, but if he had, and by himself…</p><p>He had thought it foolish before. He had hardly guessed how much. But Vinculus could not have known that Childermass would contemplate something so dangerous, not unless…  </p><p>'In fact, you both seem rather the worse for wear.' Vinculus nodded towards Segundus. 'Though, he asked after you, when I went past. I think he might have tried to come over here, if he could. He seems rather...concerned about you.’</p><p>Childermass looked at Vinculus. His face did not betray anything, but that meant nothing. Book or not, Vinculus was impossible to read when he did not want to be.</p><p>He took a deep breath, ready to speak – a warning, an excuse, he hardly knew what – but Vinculus held up a hand.</p><p>‘Do you hear that?’ he said.</p><p>Childermass closed his mouth. The garden was quiet – there was the distant murmur of Honeyfoot’s voice, the sigh of the wind in the trees. Grass, heather and branches. Birds, chattering in a bush nearby. Ordinary sounds, colourless, flavourless. He did not think that Vinculus meant them.</p><p>‘I don’t hear anything.'</p><p>Vinculus smirked, already stepping backwards. ‘Isn’t that interesting?’ he said, ‘I don’t hear anything either. And neither will anyone else. Not from me.’</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It was a long, strange night. Men came out of the house and spoke to Honeyfoot, and it was declared that though a part of the thatch had come down, the structure appeared to be sound. So long as they did not stray onto the top floor, it was safe to go indoors. Childermass was once again hauled to his feet by Charles, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that his legs seemed to be able to support him again, and he walked mostly unaided back to the house.</p><p>They went to the kitchen, where a fire was quickly built. Childermass and Segundus sat close to it, so close that the flames made Childermass's face tingle. Charles made tea and pushed it into their hands - the heat made Childermass's fingers sting, turned Segundus's cheeks red. Purfois found a bottle of something and offered it around the others. Vinculus prowled the room, never giving the impression that he was staying on purpose, but equally never leaving.</p><p>Slowly, Childermass began to feel less dazed. Segundus stopped shivering, though he kept Childermass's coat around his shoulders. The firelight turned the dust in his hair golden. </p><p>Then came the questions. Childermass had known they would, though he was ill-prepared for it. They told the story hesitantly, in turns - neither of them mentioned the forms the fairy had taken, the things that had been said, and Childermass said nothing about what the figure had done to Segundus before Miss Absalom appeared. Segundus did not mention it either, and Childermass was happy to let the matter remain between them. If he dwelled on how he had nearly lost Segundus, he would come dangerously close to giving something away. Even if he had been able to hide it, he got the distinct impression that the bargain he had made with Miss Absalom had been on the understanding that it was a private thing, not to be spoken out loud. A favour granted, but only if it remained a secret.</p><p>Too many things unsaid. Childermass felt their absence like an itch, but when he met Segundus’s eye, Segundus quickly looked away. </p><p>Mr Honeyfoot’s eyebrows went nearly to his hair when Childermass told him about Miss Absalom.    </p><p>‘You mean to say,’ he exclaimed, ‘that she came to your aid?’</p><p>Segundus nodded, spilling tea onto his sleeve. ‘Though, I hardly know why. I did not mean to summon her.’</p><p>‘She came to you once before,’ Mr Honeyfoot said. ‘The first time we visited this place.’</p><p>‘It was Mr Strange who summoned her. I only blundered in.’</p><p>‘She made sure that we were not followed back here,’ Childermass said. A flicker of memory, of starlight and an endless sky, a bell ringing. ‘We both heard it.’</p><p>Segundus shivered. ‘I am sure she only wanted to protect her house. I cannot think why else she would have done it.’</p><p><em>Because you are living in her house, </em>Childermass thought, <em>and clearly she would rather you stayed in it. </em></p><p>He remembered what Segundus had said about Miss Absalom, that she had smiled at him the first time he had seen her. He wondered how many owners Starecross had had before Mrs Lennox, and whether they had taken good care of the place. He doubted that one of them had tried to build a school in it before.  </p><p>He did not say what he was thinking out loud. His head, which had felt less heavy in the warmth of the fire, had begun to hurt again. He let Segundus tell the rest, cradling his cold tea against his stomach and allowing himself to get lost in the gentle rise and fall of Segundus’s chest, the sigh of his breathing in the crowded room. The light from the fire softened the shadows on his face, and the doctor had fixed the splint on his right arm so that it was neat again, though his collar was still askew. Childermass felt himself being drawn into a doze just watching him, just knowing that Segundus was warm and safe - and he was so tired, despite the bruises on his hands and the persistent gripe of the stitches behind his ear.</p><p>'Mr Childermass!'</p><p>Childermass started in his chair, nearly upsetting the cold tea into his lap. 'What?'</p><p>‘I said, that it is time for bed,’ Honeyfoot said, getting to his feet. ‘You are both more than warm enough now, and we have kept you far too late. The two of you look exhausted. Come now, up you get.’</p><p>Childermass could easily have slept where he was by the fire, but he made himself stand. Levy and Purfois said that they would stay a little longer, but Segundus got to his feet. He swayed, and Honeyfoot reached out to steady him. Childermass’s eyelids were sticky, and kept closing on him even as he was chivvied upstairs. The steps seemed endless, twisting and tiring. Starecross seemed strangely empty, without the tastes and sounds he had grown used to. </p><p>At the top of the steps, he turned and looked at Segundus, but Segundus was already being drawn down the corridor by Honeyfoot. Childermass waited, but Segundus did not look back, and Childermass had no choice but to head to the other side of the house, to his own room.</p><p>The door creaked when he opened it. The space seemed cold and empty. Childermass regarded it blankly, unsure for a moment what to do. He did not want to be here. He needed to go to Segundus. It could be done, too - Levy and Purfois were still downstairs. He would have a little time. </p><p>But first, he must wait for Honeyfoot to leave.</p><p>Childermass's knees hurt, so he went to the bed and sat on it. It was as good a place to wait as any.</p><p>The mattress was soft. Though the room was cool, he was still warm from the fire downstairs. His eyes slid shut. He opened them again, but they were heavy. He would lie down, then, just for a little time, just until he heard Honeyfoot go back downstairs…</p><p>He was asleep before he realised it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter Ten</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Childermass woke from a dream of strange things – dark passageways and dark figures, ivy-strewn floorboards, the smell of blood and the desperate press of hands in his own. For a moment, he was not sure why he had dreamed such things, distracted by the fact that he seemed not to have undressed before getting into bed – he was still wearing his boots, and his feet were too hot. He looked down. Why had he gone to sleep wearing them? Unless…</p>
<p>He sat up sharply. He had not meant to sleep. He had meant to go to Segundus.</p>
<p>Childermass cursed. The sound echoed in the room as he swung his legs over the bed. He had not closed the shutters, and the light made his eyes ache. It was early, a pale dawn creeping over the moor, but he had been asleep for several hours. Segundus must be waiting, after everything that had happened, waiting for…</p>
<p>Yet, Segundus was not here. Childermass had fallen asleep, but Segundus could have come and woken him.</p>
<p>Childermass frowned, remembering Segundus’s expression in the garden when he had asked Childermass to let him go. There had been the things the fairy had said since, of course, but fairies were tricky things. They twisted truths, cheated people to meet their own ends. What if they had only told Childermass what he wanted to hear? What if Childermass, somehow, had got the whole thing wrong? </p>
<p>His stomach twisted. He pressed his hands into the mattress and leaned forward, looking down at his boots. They were covered in dust. He was sticky from the night, and there was blood under his nails, on his neck. His clothes were rumpled and sweaty. He stank of the other Starecross, of the magic that had been done, and it made his head hurt.</p>
<p>When he looked up, he caught sight of his reflection in the spotted mirror that stood on the only table, propped against a jug of water. He flinched. Though he felt more rested, there were lines under his eyes and dried blood crusted to his chin. Splinters and debris were tangled in his hair and collar. Childermass did not usually pay much attention to what people thought of his attire, but seeing himself in such a state brought back the memory of the fairy, their hands on his shoulders, on the same shirt he was still wearing. The cracking beam, the ivy. Kneeling on the floorboards with Segundus cold underneath his hands.</p>
<p>He could not go see Segundus like this. </p>
<p>Muttering to himself that he was a fool, he bundled his shirt off and kicked it into a corner of the room. He pulled the tie out of his hair, sending up dust, then went to the jug and poured stale water into the basin. He moved mechanically, limbs sore, though not as heavy as he had been last night.</p>
<p>Washing his hair was a long process even when it was not full of debris, and the basin was decidedly murky by the time he finished. He glanced at himself in the mirror. The final effect would not ingratiate him with anyone who took a sharp interest in appearances, but he felt a little better for doing it. He cleaned his face and hands, wrung out his wet hair as best as he could. He found a fresh shirt and pulled it on. He did not own a great many shirts, and there was a hole in the sleeve that he had not yet mended. He considered turning over the cuff to hide it, then decided that he had bigger things to worry about.</p>
<p>A streak of sunlight fell across his hands as he turned from the mirror. Childermass waited instinctively for the twang of a harpsichord, a melody that he did not understand, but there was only silence. The light was the same as everything else – only itself, and nothing beyond that.</p>
<p>He remembered a taste of silver, the raven’s wings beating in the black night. He had asked Miss Absalom to help, and she had answered. Childermass would have bargained anything to break the spell on Segundus, but, in the clarity of the morning, he could not help but wonder why Miss Absalom had taken something that he had not even wanted. The whole thing was so strange that he almost wondered if he had somehow made it up, only he did not think he had an active enough imagination.</p>
<p>He looked for his pipe, wondering if a smoke would calm his nerves, then remembered that it was in his coat, and his coat was presumably still with Segundus. He sighed. He could not put it off any longer – he must go to Segundus and say…something.</p>
<p>There was a jacket by his bedroom door, but it was not his own. He vaguely remembered someone putting one around his shoulders, though he could not remember who had done so. He picked it up. It was too small to be Charles’s, and too worn to belong to Levy, or Mr Honeyfoot. One of the people from the village must have given it to him. </p>
<p>He folded the jacket neatly over a chair – he would find a way to return it later – and stepped into the empty corridor. He looked up and down it once, then made his way softly to Segundus’s room.</p>
<p>Starecross was quiet. Sounds stayed sounds and no longer leapt, unbidden, onto Childermass’s tongue. Colours remained where they were, and did not attach themselves to things they did not belong to. It was disconcerting, a sudden emptiness that made his ears ring. Once, he thought he heard a whisper in the hall, but it faded when he stopped to listen. </p>
<p>Segundus’s bedroom door was ajar. Childermass frowned. With so many people in the house, he would have expected Segundus to close it, if not lock it. Had he left it open on purpose, expecting Childermass to come? Had he fallen asleep still expecting him?</p>
<p>Standing outside would not bring him any answers.</p>
<p>He knocked. No reply. Childermass waited, then knocked again. When there was still no response, he stepped to the door and put his ear to the crack. There was no sound from inside. Perhaps Segundus was a quiet sleeper. </p>
<p>Gently, pressing on the door so that the hinges would not creak, he opened it a little further. The room was small but neat, taken up on one side by a desk covered in papers, and a bed on the other. The shutters were open, the bed curtains drawn back. Segundus was not there.</p>
<p>Childermass felt a scurry of fear – Segundus was gone again, the fairy had come back, the whole of last night had been a dream, and they had never returned at all – until he realised that the shirt Segundus had been wearing the day before was folded neatly on the bed, ready to be washed, and there was no sign of Segundus’s shoes. A candle had been recently extinguished, the wax still shiny and wet. Segundus was not long gone.</p>
<p>Childermass did not linger. He knew where to go.</p>
<p>He turned and hurried down the stairs. His boots echoed on the stone flags, but it was only just dawn - they had a little time before anyone else woke. The front door was unlocked, and it creaked as he opened it. Stones crunched. The cold air made Childermass’s wet scalp sting as he stepped into the garden.</p>
<p>Segundus stood on the path with his head tipped towards the sky, the early morning frost melting under his boots.</p>
<p>‘Good morning,’ he said. Childermass’s coat was folded over his left arm. </p>
<p>‘I fell asleep,’ Childermass replied, the words falling out before he could stop them. ‘I did not mean to.’</p>
<p>‘I imagine you were tired.’ Segundus inclined his head. ‘I fell asleep too.’</p>
<p>The words were gentle, but Segundus’s lips were tight, and his eyes had a sharp gleam that Childermass did not like.</p>
<p>He opened his mouth, but Segundus shook his head. ‘I would ask to speak first, Mr Childermass.’</p>
<p><em>Mr Childermass. </em>His heard sank. The events of the day before had been confusing enough, but if Segundus was going to act as if they had not happened, as if Childermass had not seen what the fairy had shown them…</p>
<p>‘I understand that there are things we must discuss,’ Segundus went on, ‘but what I have to tell you may affect what you say in return.’</p>
<p>Childermass wanted to argue, but he knew that turn of Segundus’s mouth, that tight jaw. Segundus had changed his clothes, but there were dark smudges under his eyes – if he had slept, then it could not have been for very long.</p>
<p>Childermass nodded.</p>
<p>Segundus glanced at the house behind them, then held out Childermass’s coat. ‘We should walk a little way.’</p>
<p>Childermass took the coat and put it on, feeling the reassuring weight of his pipe in one of its many pockets. The material did not smell any different for having spent the night in Segundus’s room, but he could not help but think how close it had been to Segundus, only a few hours before.</p>
<p>Segundus turned and began to walk down the path. He held the gate open for Childermass when they reached it, but did not meet his eye. Childermass wanted to shout that Segundus had said that he would not leave him, that he had promised, but he kept silent. Segundus had not left, not exactly. He had waited in the garden for Childermass. He was walking with him now.</p>
<p>Why, then, did he look so strange?</p>
<p>They took the path that led away from the village, to the moor. Segundus walked quickly, but Childermass matched his pace. Starecross dropped out of sight as they climbed. Bracken rattled. The sun continued to rise, the weak winter light turning the heather bronze and gold. The wind took hold of Childermass’s wet hair and drove deep into his skin. Segundus’s right coat sleeve flapped. He might have looked comical, if he had not been walking with such grim purpose. His left hand was buried in his coat pocket, so that he seemed to be crushing himself inwards.</p>
<p>‘I wanted to thank you,’ Segundus said, just as Childermass thought that he could not stand it any longer, that they must speak now, or he would scream. Segundus’s voice was high and breathy in the morning air. ‘For saving my life.’</p>
<p>The wind snickered amongst the heather. Childermass blinked.</p>
<p>‘You saved mine,’ he replied, confused – he had not expected Segundus to start with such a thing. He thought of Stonegate, the chair in the low room at the top of Starecross. ‘Twice.’</p>
<p>The path narrowed, and Segundus was forced to drop behind Childermass as they reached a stream, a muddy rush of water that cut across the track. Childermass stepped over it easily, and, knowing that Segundus’s legs were not long enough to cross it in one stride, turned and reached out, offering his hand. Segundus hesitated, but then he drew his left hand out of his pocket. There were bruises on his knuckles the same size as Childermass’s fingertips, yellow and ugly.</p>
<p>Segundus followed Childermass’s gaze. ‘Please do not worry,’ he said. ‘It does not hurt.’</p>
<p>He took Childermass’s hand and made a half-jump, half-step over the stream. His fingers curled for a moment, warm in Childermass’s grip, and Childermass wondered if he would keep holding on, as they had in the doorway the day before, but Segundus pulled his hand away as soon as he had both feet on solid ground.</p>
<p>They stood opposite each other on the path. The silence stretched, became uneasy.</p>
<p>Childermass cleared his throat. ‘Is there something else that you wished to say?’</p>
<p>He tried to sound sharp, but he could not manage it. Segundus was standing so close to him, his hands bruised, his hair dishevelled by the wind, and Childermass felt thin and lost, like candle smoke. He remembered the terror of seeing Segundus’s legs go out from under him at the top of Starecross.</p>
<p>‘I have been meaning to apologise to you,’ Segundus said.</p>
<p>‘Oh?’ Childermass kept his voice level, but his skin was too tight around his flesh.</p>
<p>‘Please.’ Segundus’s face was pale. ‘You must let me finish, no matter how strange it seems.’</p>
<p>They stood facing each other, with nothing between them and the sky. A cloud shifted over the sun, deepening the shadows that still lingered amongst the heather. The stream gurgled. </p>
<p>Childermass nodded.</p>
<p>‘Thank you.’ Segundus took a deep breath. ‘You will know it already from what the fairy said, from what we were shown, but I have, for some time, felt certain...ways towards you that one gentleman ought not to feel for another. As a result, I rather let myself grow carried away in the kitchen the other day.’</p>
<p>Childermass frowned. ‘But I-’</p>
<p>‘Please.’ Segundus held up his hand. ‘You promised you would not interrupt. I know what you are going to say – you will say that you return my feelings. I even thought the same, until Mr Levy and Mr Purfois came in, and you…’ Segundus swallowed. ‘You looked at them so intensely, and later that night, I thought how strange you must be finding everything after the effects of <em>Restoration </em>– you were so clearly affected by it, and I realised that when I performed the magic in Stonegate, I am afraid that…well…’</p>
<p>It fell into place like wood catching fire.</p>
<p>‘You think that I am under your spell,’ Childermass said.</p>
<p>‘You must believe me when I say that it was not intentional.’ Segundus’s voice cracked. His jaw was no longer tight, and his shoulders trembled. Suddenly, he looked on the verge of tears. ‘What happened in Stonegate was rather frantic, and I by no means…’</p>
<p>Childermass tried to reach out, but Segundus stepped aside.</p>
<p>‘You must not touch me,’ he said. ‘It is not fair, on either of us. That is why I asked you to let me go, in the garden. I could not find a way to explain it – I had not expected to you to be there when I stepped outside, and I thought-’  </p>
<p>‘I am not enchanted.’</p>
<p>‘You may very well believe that, but you must try to see it clearly. It was only after Stonegate, after <em>Restoration </em>that you…that we no longer argued. And you kept looking at me so strangely, when you thought I could not see.’ He shook his head. ‘The effects of magic can be horribly unpredictable. Even the fairy said that you were different because of it. One can be under enchantment, and not know it.’</p>
<p>‘I do know it.’ Childermass took a deep breath. It seemed best to say it plainly. ‘I no longer have the effects of <em>Restoration</em>. I no longer sense the way I did. I bargained it away.’</p>
<p>‘You…?’</p>
<p>‘I do not know why Miss Absalom took it, but she did. You were…’ <em>Dying</em>. ‘Unwell. I asked for her help, and she gave it. From then, I have sensed nothing out of the ordinary.'</p>
<p>‘But…’ Segundus shifted. A stone rattled under his heel. ‘Why would she take such a thing?’</p>
<p>Childermass shrugged. ‘Miss Absalom’s love for magic is well known. Perhaps she was curious. At the time, I did not care.’</p>
<p>The wind picked up, making the heather sway. Segundus shivered.</p>
<p>‘Was it really so bad?’ he murmured.</p>
<p>‘Yes.’ Childermass met Segundus’s eye. ‘If she had not helped, you would not be here. If she had wanted more, I would have given it. I would have given her the whole of England, if she had asked for it.’</p>
<p>‘You…’ Segundus shook his head. ‘No. It does not prove anything.’</p>
<p>‘Of course it does. I no longer suffer from the effects of<em> Restoration</em>, but my feelings remain the same.’</p>
<p>‘What if you are only saying that because it is what I want to hear?’ Segundus took a step back. ‘What if it is still a part of the enchantment?’</p>
<p>Childermass sighed. ‘For a start, I cannot believe any magic you produce, even by accident, could be so malevolent. And secondly, the fairy said quite plainly that you were familiar to them. How else would that be?’</p>
<p>‘Because…’ Segundus blinked. ‘Because they knew what would persuade you from a road at night.’</p>
<p>‘Yes. And where did I meet them?’</p>
<p>‘On your way to York.’ Segundus bit his lip. ‘Before Stonegate.’</p>
<p>‘They took your form. Your voice.’ Childermass looked beyond Segundus to the rushing stream, remembering the smell of woodsmoke, the strange comfort the figure had brought him. ‘They asked me to help them, and I nearly did it, though I should have known that something was wrong – simply because they reminded me so much of you.’</p>
<p>Segundus put a hand to his mouth. ‘I…I am a fool.’</p>
<p>‘You are not a fool.’ Childermass stepped forward, closing the space between them. ‘You are cautious, and kind. And I have been as much a fool as you, for I knew from the first times we met the way I felt, and I could do nothing but argue with you, thinking that it would change the fact.’</p>
<p>He pressed his knuckles against Segundus’s left fingers. This time, Segundus did not move away – he twisted his hand so that Childermass’s was in his own, held gently in Segundus’s palm. </p>
<p>‘<em>L’amoureux </em>has many meanings,’ Childermass murmured, ‘but the most obvious one is usually correct. What I am trying to say is that the magic did not make me <em>feel</em> anything different. It only made me think more carefully about it. I have never been so at home than I have at Starecross these past few days. Though so much had happened, I knew that you would help me, if you could. That you would listen, and understand.' </p>
<p>The cloud shifted away from the sun, and the heather turned gold again. A bird made a high-pitched cry beyond the hill. </p>
<p>‘I searched for you, after I asked you to let me go,’ Segundus said quietly, looking down at their hands. ‘When I realised you had gone, I…I could not stand to be with Mr Honeyfoot, or the people from the village. I wanted only to be alone. But when I was alone, all I could think was that I wished you were with me.’ His voice shook. ‘And when you could not breathe…I have never been that afraid before. Even in Stonegate, I-’</p>
<p>‘It is alright,’ Childermass murmured. Gently, he touched his brow to the top of Segundus’s head. ‘We are safe now.’</p>
<p>‘Only because Miss Absalom…that is, we have been very lucky.’</p>
<p>‘Yes.’ Childermass pulled back. His wet hair left drops of water on Segundus’s parting. ‘But that only means we should be grateful.’</p>
<p>‘And more careful.’</p>
<p>Childermass snorted. ‘That too. Between Stonegate and yesterday, I am rather ready for a quiet winter.’</p>
<p>‘You could spend it here.’ Segundus sniffed, and looked up. ‘We have plenty of space, even if it is not yet ready for teaching. Only if you want, of course.’</p>
<p>‘John,’ Childermass said, smiling. ‘I would like very much to stay.’</p>
<p>‘Good.’ Segundus tightened his grip on Childermass’s hand, interlacing their fingers. ‘That is…good.’</p>
<p>The wind stirred the moor around them. They were so close that Childermass could feel the beat of Segundus’s heart, but he waited. Segundus was looking at him like he was about to speak, his face rubbed pink by the cold, and Childermass could wait a little longer.</p>
<p>‘May I ask,’ Segundus said at last, ‘what it was about the magic that made you look at me so oddly?’</p>
<p>
  <em>What do you see of my soul, Mr Childermass? </em>
</p>
<p>‘I saw a sky in your voice.’ Childermass did not hesitate. 'Of the things that I did see, it is the only one that I will miss.’ He put his other hand to Segundus’s face, so that he could feel the curve of his cheek under his thumb. ‘I could have watched it for hours.’</p>
<p>Segundus eyes were wet, but he laughed. ‘Mr Childermass,’ he said, ‘I do believe that you are a romantic.’</p>
<p>Segundus's breath rose, cloudy in the cold. Childermass leaned down. Segundus lifted on his toes to meet him and, where there was no-one to see them, under the grey moor sky, Segundus put his lips to Childermass’s. His mouth was warm and gentle, and he tasted of nothing but himself.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Phew! Believe it or not, there is just an epilogue to go now - thank you for sticking with me so far.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>‘Do you not think,’ said Miss Redruth to Mr Honeyfoot at the Starre Inn, York, ‘that Mr Childermass and Mr Segundus are on much better terms of late?’</p><p>Mr Honeyfoot mopped his brow. The weather had not yet turned to spring, but the Society meeting was busy and the room rather close. He would have liked to take his leave and return to High Petergate, but he did not wish to appear rude by pretending that he had not heard Miss Redruth.</p><p>‘You are quite correct,’ he said instead. ‘There was an incident not two months ago that seemed to put what small differences they had into perspective. I am surprised that you have not heard.’</p><p>‘I have been away – I had to visit relatives in Lancashire.’ Miss Redruth sounded very much as if she did not wish to return to Lancashire for a good many years. ‘This is the first meeting I have been able to attend since.’</p><p>‘It was quite a series of strange happenings. Mr Childermass was injured in a minor confrontation, not very far from here, and Mr Segundus was required to use Pale’s<em> Restoration and Rectification </em>to aid him.’</p><p>Miss Redruth raised a neat eyebrow. Though she had a great deal of respect for Mr Segundus, and knew that he had done some practical magic, <em>Restoration</em> was not the type of spell she expected of him. It was an old, instinctive magic, and she considered Mr Segundus, with his respectable, scholarly air, a more modern kind of magician. </p><p>‘And that is only the beginning of it,’ Mr Honeyfoot went on. ‘Afterwards, Mr Childermass kindly agreed to help with the work that needed doing at Starecross. That was all to the good, only, what with one thing and another, we had a bit of bother with a fairy that could have ended very nastily for all of us.'</p><p>'A fairy? Truly?'</p><p>'As true as I stand here. Not a very powerful one, but any fairy is a match for even an experienced magician. Mr Childermass encountered it on the road to York, and it pursued him to Starecross. The whole thing might have ended very badly, especially for Mr Segundus, if not for Mr Childermass. Did you know that he did magic to prevent a part of Starecross's roof falling down on the two of them? He rather skirted the issue of it at first, but Mr Segundus got the truth from him in the end. It was quite a remarkable thing – though we were rather lucky that Mrs Lennox did not mind paying for the repair.’ Mr Honeyfoot scratched his chin. ‘Of course, there was Miss Absalom as well.’</p><p>Miss Redruth’s eyes widened. ‘Maria Absalom?’</p><p>‘Oh yes. She provided a place of safety for Mr Segundus and Mr Childermass in her own Starecross - that is, we believe it to be a Starecross that once was. I suppose that she must have known the fairy would pursue them there, because she prevented it from following them home. Mr Childermass and Mr Segundus do not like to speak of it very often, but I rather think Mr Childermass feels that Miss Absalom approves of our plans for a school, and did not want them to be interrupted, which is surely would have happened if Mr Segundus had been hurt, or worse.’</p><p>Mr Honeyfoot shivered, despite the warm room. He was fond of Mr Segundus, and often worried about him. Though the events at Starecross had not ended badly, he was very glad that they were over.</p><p>‘Mr Childermass and Mr Segundus had to find their own way back from Miss Absalom’s Starecross,’ he went on. ‘Neither of them has clear memory of it, but I think it must have been quite a brilliant example of pathfinding, though rather an improvised piece of magic.’</p><p>‘My goodness,’ Miss Redruth said. ‘The whole thing sounds like a fascinating adventure.’</p><p>‘Oh no.’ Mr Honeyfoot shook his head. ‘It was quite a nasty business. We were lucky that nobody was badly hurt.’</p><p>‘Still.’ Miss Redruth glanced across the room, where Mr Segundus was stood by the window that looked out into the street, deep in conversation with Mr Childermass. ‘I suppose it explains why the two of them are on better terms now. Adversity is said to bring comradery, is it not?’</p><p>‘Indeed,’ Mr Honeyfoot said. ‘Mr Childermass has been at Starecross since, and intends to stay until the spring at the very least. Between you and me, I think the rest is doing him good – he and Mr Segundus are quite firm friends now. They are forever exchanging books or going for walks together. You scarcely see one of them without the other.'</p><p>Miss Redruth dearly wished to ask further questions, but Mr Honeyfoot kept looking towards the doorway, and, as she was rather fond of him, she allowed him to bid her farewell. There were now only a handful of people remaining in the meeting room – a group of men with white hair and beards at the table, a lady in a grey bonnet talking rather sharply to her husband, Mr Segundus and Mr Childermass by the window, and Miss Redruth.</p><p>She lingered by the doorway, waiting for either Mr Segundus or Mr Childermass to leave off their conversation so that she could approach and speak to Mr Segundus without being impolite. Though she usually had little reserve about speaking out, even in a roomful of learned men, she knew that to appear rude in front of Mr Segundus would only make him less willing to speak to her, and she was quite wild with curiosity about the events that she had so disappointingly missed. It all sounded very unexpected and exciting, which was exactly the type of magic Miss Redruth liked. Though it was easy to picture someone like Mr Childermass doing instinctive magic such as Mr Honeyfoot described, she was more surprised at Mr Segundus's part in it, and eager to discuss it with him. </p><p>So, she waited. The three men at the table stroked their beards, muttered farewells, and headed for the stairs. A few minutes later the lady in the grey bonnet also took her leave, her husband following behind, and then there was no-one in the room except the three of them.</p><p>It was strange, Miss Redruth thought, standing by the door and watching Mr Segundus and Mr Childermass without trying to appear that she was doing so. Usually, Mr Segundus was rather attentive to his surroundings, and would have noticed that she was waiting. Now, he did not appear to realise that she was still in the room at all. He was speaking animatedly to Mr Childermass, who leaned against the windowsill with his arms folded loosely over his chest and the sole of his left boot pressed flat against the wall in a manner that would have displeased the landlady of the Starre Inn, if she had happened to enter the room and observe it. Two months ago it would certainly have displeased Mr Segundus as well - the last Miss Redruth had seen of either of them, she had been forced to lead him away from Mr Childermass as they argued about bells. Now, though, Mr Segundus did not note Mr Childermass’s shoe against the wainscot. His cheeks were flushed in the warm room, and if his expression as he spoke was a little more intent than was usual, Miss Redruth did not think much of it – Mr Segundus’s enthusiasm for magic was well-known.</p><p>In fact, it was Mr Childermass’s expression that made Miss Redruth take notice. Mr Childermass had the sort of face that many found unsettling, though Miss Redruth had always thought it rather romantic, but in the dim firelight, as he faced Mr Segundus, his features were softened, almost wistful. It was clear that he was listening to what Mr Segundus said, but in a manner that was strangely gentle. Miss Redruth blinked. Two months ago, she would never have expected Mr Childermass to look at ease around Mr Segundus. It was if they had been good friends for years. </p><p>Two knocks on the doorframe. Miss Redruth started, and turned to see her father in the doorway, his hat under his arm. He had insisted on accompanying her into the meeting room the first times she had come to the Starre, but now preferred to remain in the public room where he could find non-magical company.</p><p>‘Come, my dear,’ he said, ‘it is getting late.’</p><p>She hesitated. She wished dearly to speak to Mr Segundus, but when she glanced back at the window, she saw that Mr Segundus and Mr Childermass had not even looked her way. Whatever matters they were discussing, they were clearly not going to leave off them any time soon. If she interrupted now then Mr Segundus may not be willing to speak on the magic he had done, or her father may grow impatient and insist that they leave, and that would be quite as bad as not hearing it at all. She sighed. She must wait until the next meeting, then, and catch Mr Segundus early in the proceedings.</p><p>At least, she thought, as she turned to go, Mr Segundus and Mr Childermass were now on speaking terms. Mr Childermass would surely be an asset to Starecross, as the Reader of the Book and a skilled practical magician. Miss Redruth had a passion for magic that was matched by very few even at the York Society, and it was her opinion that anything that benefitted magic at Starecross, or anywhere else, was something to be approved of.</p><p>‘Did you enjoy the meeting?’ her father said as they stepped towards the stairs.</p><p>‘It was very interesting.’ She smiled. ‘Vinculus tried to make a bet that none of the Society could understand the writing upon him if he stood on his head, but no-one would accept it.’</p><p>Her father frowned. He did not approve of Vinculus. ‘Now, my dear…’</p><p>‘Oh hush, father,’ she said, ‘Mr Childermass did not let him stand on his head.’</p><p>‘Mr Childermass? Is he the odd-looking gentleman in the long coat?’</p><p>‘Yes. He was speaking to Mr Segundus as we left.’</p><p>‘I thought you said that the two of them did not see eye to eye?’</p><p>Miss Redruth shrugged. ‘It seems that they have had a change of heart.’</p><p>‘I see.’ Her father sniffed. ‘I suppose that is a good thing for the Society?’</p><p>‘Yes, father.’ Miss Redruth smiled. ‘I rather think it is.’</p><p>As they reached the top of the stairs, just as the murmur of Mr Segundus’s voice faded out of hearing, its softness overtaken by the bustle of the public room below, a noise echoed into the corridor. Miss Redruth paused, wondering what it could be, until she realised that it was the deep, rarely-heard sound of John Childermass laughing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The end – thanks for sticking with me! This story turned out much longer than I expected. When I first started writing I thought it would be a one-shot, and even when I started uploading I thought it was done at 17k, but the story ran away with me completely. Thank you to everyone who’s said they’ve enjoyed it – it’s been a strange time in the outside world and being able to have some conversations about JS&amp;MN has meant a lot. I’ve had fun and I hope you have too!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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